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NO MORE EXCUSES WATCH a Roadmap to Justice for CIA Torture

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NO MORE EXCUSES WATCH a Roadmap to Justice for CIA Torture HUMAN RIGHTS NO MORE EXCUSES WATCH A Roadmap to Justice for CIA Torture No More Excuses A Roadmap to Justice for CIA Torture Copyright © 2015 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-62313-2996 Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world. We stand with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders to justice. We investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable. We challenge governments and those who hold power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law. We enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all. Human Rights Watch is an international organization with staff in more than 40 countries, and offices in Amsterdam, Beirut, Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Goma, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo, Toronto, Tunis, Washington DC, and Zurich. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.hrw.org NOVEMBER 2015 978-1-62313-2996 No More Excuses A Roadmap to Justice for CIA Torture Summary ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Methodology .................................................................................................................................. 8 Key Recommendations .................................................................................................................... 9 To US Authorities ..................................................................................................................... 9 To Foreign Governments .......................................................................................................... 9 I. Background ................................................................................................................................ 10 Short History of the CIA Program ............................................................................................. 10 The CIA Program: What Was Known before the Senate Summary .............................................. 19 Justice Department Inquiry into CIA Torture ............................................................................. 25 New Details in the Senate Summary ....................................................................................... 29 US Response to the Senate Summary ...................................................................................... 32 II. Bringing Criminal Prosecutions in the US .................................................................................... 35 Substance of Potential Charges .............................................................................................. 35 Torture and Conspiracy to Torture ........................................................................................... 35 Evidence of Conspiracy to Torture ........................................................................................... 41 Evidence of Torture: Conduct Beyond What Was Authorized .................................................... 65 Other Criminal Charges .......................................................................................................... 82 Defenses ............................................................................................................................... 89 III. Repairing the Harm and Ending Torture ...................................................................................... 97 Obligation to Provide Redress, Compensation, and Rehabilitation .......................................... 97 US Failure to Comply with International Legal Obligations ...................................................... 99 Legislation, Other Measures ................................................................................................. 105 IV. International Accountability Mechanisms ................................................................................ 112 Investigations and Prosecutions of US Officials ..................................................................... 118 Investigations Focused on European Complicity .................................................................... 138 Potential Investigation by the International Criminal Court .................................................... 145 Recommendations ....................................................................................................................... 148 To the US President .............................................................................................................. 148 To the Department of Justice ................................................................................................. 149 To the US Congress ............................................................................................................... 149 To Countries that Provided Support to the CIA Rendition Program .......................................... 149 To All Foreign Governments ................................................................................................... 150 To Specific National Authorities in the Following Countries .................................................... 150 To the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and UN Experts and Bodies ............................................................................................................... 152 To the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court ......................................... 152 Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................................... 153 Summary It is now well established that following the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operated a global, state-sanctioned program in which it abducted scores of people throughout the world, held them in secret detention—sometimes for years—or “rendered” them to various countries, and tortured or otherwise ill-treated them. While the program officially ended in 2009, the cover-up of these crimes appears to be ongoing. Many detainees were held by the CIA in pitch-dark windowless cells, chained to walls, naked or diapered, for weeks or months at a time. The CIA forced them into painful stress positions that made it impossible for them to lie down or sleep for days, to the point where many hallucinated or begged to be killed to end their misery. It used “waterboarding” and similar techniques to cause near suffocation or drowning, crammed detainees naked into tiny boxes, and prevented them from bathing, using toilets, or cutting their hair or nails for months. “We looked like monsters,” one detainee said of his appearance while in CIA custody. Much new information about detention and interrogation in the CIA program became public with the release in redacted form of the 499-page summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report in December 2014 (“Senate Summary”). The Senate Summary reported that the CIA subjected at least five detainees to “rectal feeding,” described in one case as infusing the pureed contents of a lunch tray into the detainee’s rectum via a medical tube, done “without evidence of medical necessity.” The Senate Summary also found that during a waterboarding session, one detainee became “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.” The CIA forced some detainees to stand for days on end without sleep while they had broken bones in their legs and feet, even though CIA personnel knew this would cause them long- term physical injury. A CIA cable described one detainee as "clearly a broken man" and "on the verge of complete breakdown." The US government has not adequately accounted for these abuses. It has an obligation under international law to prosecute torture where warranted and provide redress to victims, but it has done neither. No one with real responsibility for these crimes has been 1 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | NOVEMBER 2015 held accountable and the government has actively thwarted attempts on the part of victims to obtain redress and compensation in US courts. The Obama administration asserted that it conducted a criminal investigation of the CIA program through a Department of Justice inquiry led by a career prosecutor, Assistant US Attorney John Durham. The Durham investigation closed on August 30, 2012 without bringing any criminal charges. The apparent failure of the investigation to question current or former detainees undercuts any claims that it was thorough or credible. As set out in this report, Human Rights Watch concludes there is substantial evidence to support the opening of new investigations into allegations of criminal offenses by numerous US officials and agents in connection with the CIA program. These include torture, assault, sexual abuse, war crimes, and conspiracy to commit such crimes. In reaching this conclusion, we have drawn on our own investigations, media and other public reports, and the declassified information in the Senate Summary. But more evidence exists that has yet to be made public. We believe that an independent and impartial investigation that has access to the full Senate
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