WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — A former US official reportedly told the Guardian that the photographs are "very gruesome."
The report cited sources confirming that the photographs were used to "insulate the CIA from legal or political ramifications" that may arise from the detainees suffering "brutal treatment" in the hands of US allies participating in the network of black detention sites.
The CIA torture program, which began following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and continued through approximately 2005, was officially confirmed with the 2014 declassification of a US Senate Intelligence Committee report on the program.
The CIA reportedly had video evidence from black sites of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," but they were destroyed in 2005. The cache of photographs revealed in the Guardian’s report is said to still be intact.
Reports of widespread abuse of suspected or actual terrorist detainees by US military personnel began surfacing in 2003, prompting an internal review of the practice. In 2004, US media released photographs depicting explicit mistreatment of prisoners, including sexual humiliation.
Under the Third Geneva Convention, prisoners of war are protected from cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment. Legal opinions held by the former US President George W. Bush administration bypassed international legal restraints on prisoners of armed conflict, protecting those who carried out and authorized the practice.
