black sites

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Lithuania Plans to Sell CIA's 'Detention Site Violet'

Lithuanian government’s real estate fund announced it will unload the structure

(Newser) - A steel barn that's about to hit the market in Lithuania wouldn't normally attract international attention, but then again, there aren't too many barns out there that have served as CIA black sites. The Lithuanian government’s real estate fund says it is preparing to sell the...

US: Guantanamo Detainee Is Allowed to Describe Torture

Poland is investigating Abu Zubaydah's treatment at secret CIA site

(Newser) - The Biden administration says it will allow a Guantanamo Bay detainee to provide information to Polish officials about his torture in CIA custody following the 9/11 attacks. The decision from the Biden administration was included in a letter government lawyers filed Friday with the Supreme Court. The administration said it...

Woman Claims She Was Held in Chinese 'Black Site' in Dubai

China, Dubai dispute her allegations

(Newser) - A young Chinese woman says she was held for eight days at a Chinese-run secret detention facility in Dubai along with at least two Uighurs, in what may be the first evidence that China is operating a so-called "black site" beyond its borders. The woman, 26-year-old Wu Huan, was...

CIA's New No. 2 Ran a Secret Prison in Thailand

Gina Haspel is the first female to hold the position

(Newser) - Gina Haspel ran a "black site" CIA prison in Thailand where detainees were tortured—and now she's a step away from running the entire CIA. The veteran officer was named Thursday as deputy director, making her the first female spy to hold the No. 2 position, reports Reuters...

Trump to Consider Lifting Ban on 'Black Site' Prisons

He asks for review of interrogation techniques, may reverse course on Gitmo

(Newser) - President Trump is asking for a review of America's methods for interrogating terror suspects and the possible reopening of CIA-run "black site" prisons outside the United States, according to a draft executive order obtained by the AP . The order would also reverse America's commitment to closing the...

Chicago Man: Police Did the Unthinkable at 'Black Site'

Homan Square continues to get hammered for alleged abuse

(Newser) - The Guardian has been relentlessly pursuing a story out of Chicago—the subject of Homan Square, an alleged PD "black site" where suspects are reportedly taken to be brutally interrogated. Now a 13th man has shared with the paper his own allegations of abuse at the hands of officers...

Report: Chicago Police Have 'Domestic Black Site'

'Guardian' says people detained at Homan Square facility without due process

(Newser) - You've likely heard of "black sites" operated by the CIA at which prisoners are interrogated off the grid and without due process. Well, an investigation released yesterday by the Guardian asserts that the Chicago Police Department has something similar—a former Sears warehouse on the west side of...

Poland Let CIA Run 'Black Site', Torture Men: Court

Al-Qaeda members' human rights were violated, tribunal rules

(Newser) - Poland has denied that it let the CIA run a "black site" on its soil, where two suspected members of al-Qaeda claim they were tortured, but the European Court of Human Rights came to a different conclusion today, blasting Poland for human rights violations. The ruling awarded $175,000...

Report: CIA Gave Poland $15M for Use of 'Black Site'

'Washington Post' report sheds light on infamous secret jail

(Newser) - Polish prosecutors intend to look into a Washington Post report alleging that the CIA in 2003 handed Polish intelligence agents two cardboard boxes stuffed with $15 million in cash as a payoff to use a Polish facility as perhaps the agency's most infamous "black site" prison . The report...

US Sends Marines to Italy as Libya Tensions Mount

US ambassador hauled in over al-Libi raid

(Newser) - The US' capture of Abu Anas al-Libi is turning into a full-blown diplomatic incident. Libya's government has summoned the US ambassador for questioning over what it terms the "kidnapping" of the alleged al-Qaeda operative, CNN reports. The US, meanwhile, sees the situation as perilous enough that it has...

CIA Kept Secret Prison in Bucharest Neighborhood

AP investigation uncovers details of black site in Romania

(Newser) - The CIA's secret "black site" prison in Romania wasn't in some remote region of the country, but smack dab in the middle of a busy residential neighborhood near the center of Bucharest, the AP has discovered in a joint investigation with German public television. Sources say the...

CIA Manipulated Every Detail of Interrogation Sessions

Top-level approval of interrogation techniques could complicate Justice probe

(Newser) - As the CIA discloses internal reports concerning “enhanced” interrogation techniques on detainees at secret prisons, the ugliest details—threats of execution and harm with a power drill—have grabbed headlines. But the documents also reveal an intriguing level of control that the CIA and Department of Justice maintained over...

Fleischer: Subpoena Me —I Dare You

Ex-Bush spokesman would 'be proud to testify' about torture

(Newser) - Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer doesn’t think there should be an investigation of his boss’s torture program. But “I’ll be proud to testify if I get a subpoena,” he said during a panel discussion yesterday. “I’m proud of what we did to protect...

CIA Tortured Prisoners: Red Cross

2007 report is first to use 'torture' in legal context

(Newser) - The Red Cross concluded in 2007 that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda detainees "constituted torture," the Washington Post reports. Fourteen prisoners transferred from multiple CIA "black site" prisons overseas to Guantanamo all described similar patterns of beatings, sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme heat and cold, and...

Obama Could Expose Secrets of the Bush Years

On torture, wiretapping, and more, Bush legacy rests with successor

(Newser) - Good government groups spent years suing and lobbying to expose the Bush administration’s secrets. Will President Obama spill the beans on his predecessor? Politico outlines major secrets Obama can choose to air or keep:
  • US attorney firings: Claiming executive privilege, Karl Rove refused to testify. But Rove has been
...

New Claims of Taped CIA Torture
New Claims of Taped CIA Torture

New Claims of Taped CIA Torture

Lawyers to present evidence to Senate panel

(Newser) - Evidence that another CIA detainee was videotaped allegedly being tortured by interrogators is expected to be presented to the Senate Intelligence Committee tomorrow, reports Time magazine. A former suburban Baltimore high school student underwent unspecified "systematic torture" that may have involved waterboarding in a secret CIA prison in 2003,...

Yemeni Inmate Claims Months of Abuse in CIA Cells

He tells Salon he was held at 'black sites'

(Newser) - A Yemeni man claims he was held for 19 months in secret CIA prisons, shackled in tiny cells with no idea why he was there or if he would ever be free again, bombarded by rap music or white noise around the clock. Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah says he was...

UK Probes Charges That CIA Used Brit Prison for Torture

(Newser) - British officials will investigate persistent claims that the CIA secretly interrogated terrorism suspects at a UK prison in the Indian Ocean, the Guardian reports. Authorities have repeatedly questioned American officials, who deny the reports. But an organization representing detainees insists the claims are true, adding that the British may be...

Justice Memos Endorse Torture
Justice Memos Endorse Torture

Justice Memos Endorse Torture

Officials gave green light for array of painful interrogation techniques

(Newser) - The Justice Department under Alberto Gonzales secretly endorsed the use of torture techniques during interrogation by the CIA, the New York Times reports. A classified 2005 legal memorandum authorized the harshest  techniques ever used by the CIA, the Times says, including a combination of head-slapping, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, freezing, loud...

Prisoner Sheds Harsh Light on "Black Sites"

Testimony undercuts Bush claims about CIA secret facilities for terror suspects

(Newser) - Details about "black sites"--the network of secret internment facilities for terror suspects the CIA ran until last summer—are emerging as former prisoners tell their stories. The Washington Post interviews Marwan Jabour, an accused al-Qaeda paymaster who spent 28 months in two facilities—where he was drugged, burned,...

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