Senate Report Reveals Brutal CIA Torture Practices

The interrogators of the US Central Intelligence Agency used violent techniques against the suspects, detained in relation to 9/11 attacks.

WASHINGTON, December 9 (Sputnik) – CIA interrogators used a number of cruel techniques including ‘Russian Roulette’, sleep deprivation, along with other tortures against the suspects, detained in relation to 9/11 attacks, according to a US Senate report released Tuesday.

“The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others,” the Senate reports said.

The report stated that one of the officers “had engaged in a ‘Russian Roulette’ with a detainee”.

Besides, CIA interrogation techniques included “slaps and ‘wallings’ (slamming detainees against a wall) [that] were used in combination, frequently concurrent with sleep deprivation and nudity”, along with “threats of death,” and “threatening detainees that their families would be harmed,” according to the report.

In addition, “threats to harm the children of a detainee, threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee, and a threat to ‘cut [a detainee's] mother's throat’” were not rare, the report said.

According to the report, several detainees believed they would never be allowed to leave CIA custody alive, and one detainee thought that he would only leave in a coffin-shaped box.

The report found waterboarding was “physically harmful, inducing convulsions and vomiting” and sleep deprivation induced hallucinations.

At times enhanced interrogation techniques were used, despite warnings from medical authorities they could exacerbate existing physical injuries to the detriment of the detainees’ health.

In a few cases detainees, including Gul Rahman, died as a result of the brutal interrogation techniques. In the case of Rahman, the CIA officers involved in the death “remained key figures in the CIA interrogation program and received no reprimand or sanction for Rahman's death,” according to the report.

The report analyzes that those officers involved in the tortures often “had workplace anger management issues, and had reportedly admitted to sexual assault”.

Additional security measures have been taken at US facilities around the world ahead of the release of the torture report, amid fear that the evidence of torture would trigger attacks against the United States.