CIA ‘wrongfully imprisoned’ 26 people: Senate report

The US Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA torture techniques has revealed that at least 26 people were “wrongfully detained” by the spy agency.

On Tuesday, the Senate committee released a drastically redacted summary of its voluminous report on the CIA’s torture program during the George W. Bush administration.

The report falls into four main categories consisting of ineffective use of torture, misleading the US government about how the methods were conducted, flawed management, and extensive use of torture far more brutal than the CIA had allowed anyone to know.

According to the report, 26 of the CIA’s 119 prisoners “did not meet the … standard for detention.”

One of these “wrongfully detained” people suffered 66 hours of standing sleep deprivation and ice water baths “before being released because the CIA discovered he was likely not the person he was believed to be.”

One mentally challenged person was arrested and used “as leverage” against another family member.

One man from Yemen, named Mohamed Bashmilah, had been held and tortured for 19 months by CIA agents in secret prisons. At times, they kept him shackled alone in freezing-cold cells in Afghanistan, subjected to loud music 24 hours a day.

In addition, the report says that at least 39 of these 119 prisoners were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques.

According to the Senate report, the CIA misled Congress and the White House about the harsh methods such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, mock executions and threats that the relatives of the prisoners would be sexually abused.

One of the methods used by the CIA on terrorism suspects during America’s so-called war on terror was rectal rehydration, a brutal force-feeding technique where food is rectally infused to prisoners on hunger strike.