Earlier today, Human Rights Watch released a report in which it charges the CIA and UK security forces of serious human rights violations.
The 154-page report, Delivered Into Enemy Hands: U.S.-Led Abuse and Rendition of Opponents to Qaddafi’s Libya, was based on recently uncovered and declassified documents from the CIA and Qaddafi's security forces and interviews with 14 former detainees — most of whom had some relationship to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which worked to overthrow Gaddafi for about two decades.
And some of what HRW uncovered is shocking:
Mohammed Shoroeiya was one of the 14 subjects interviewed. He was arrested in Peshawar, Pakistan, in April 2003 by Pakistani and U.S. personnel, and eventually transferred to a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan.
The report states that Shoroeiya was periodically tortured by, "all of whom he believed to be American." in a manner similar to waterboarding:
Shoroeiya said the board was made of wood and could turn around 360 degrees. Sometimes they would strap him onto the board and spin him around while wearing a hood that covered his nose and mouth. This would completely disorient him. While he was strapped to the board with his head lower than his feet, they would pour buckets of extremely cold water over his nose and mouth to the point that he felt he was going to suffocate. After the hood was put over his face, he said, “then there is the water pouring…. They start to pour water to the point where you feel like you are suffocating.” When asked how many times this was done to him, he said “a lot …a lot … it happened many times …. They pour buckets of water all over you.”
The report did not mention why Shoroeiya was arrested, nor did it highlight a particular reason that he was tortured in the specific detention facility referred to above.
The CIA have refused to comment on the specific details of the case, though told Business Insider that it has been on the record about three cases where "detainees were subjected to the waterboarding technique".
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