Also see: The Al Quaeda Leader Who Wasn’t: The Shameful Ordeal of Abu Zubdayah.
For the first time, a federal judge is allowing torture victims to sue the psychologists who devised the CIA’s brutal interrogation methods that included sleep deprivation, starvation and forcing captives into coffin-like boxes.
Gul Rahman, an Afghan refugee who formerly lived in Pakistan, froze to death at a CIA black site, so his family is bringing the case on his behalf. The other men, Suleiman Abdullah Salim and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, are also levying the suit with the backing of the ACLU.
The defendants are James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who received millions of dollars from the government for a company they established in 2005 to run the CIA torture program. In a searing report released in December 2014, Physicians for Human Rights slammed Mitchell and Jessen for their role in “conceptualizing and designing strategies for the direct infliction of a combination of physical and psychological harm on detainees.” Mitchell dismissed the atrocities highlighted in the Senate torture report as a “load of hooey” in 2014.
Mitchell, like other high-level architects of CIA torture, has so far faced no consequences for his role in the systematic atrocities perpetrated by the post-9/11 U.S. government and its contractors. But this impunity could change after U.S. District Court Senior Judge Justin Quackenbush on Friday instructed lawyers that they will have 30 days to present their plan for discovery, making this the first CIA torture lawsuit that will be allowed to proceed.
“Until now, every lawsuit trying to hold people accountable for the CIA torture program has been dismissed before reaching the merits because the government successfully argued that letting the cases proceed would reveal state secrets,” the ACLU explained.
“This is a historic win in the fight to hold the people responsible for torture accountable for their despicable and unlawful actions,” said ACLU staff attorney Dror Ladin. “Thanks to this unprecedented ruling, CIA victims will be able to call their torturers to account in court for the first time.”
“James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen not only violated their ethical duty to do no harm, they helped commit war crimes,” said Sarah Dougherty, a senior fellow at Physicians for Human Rights. “They must be held accountable for the cruelty they inflicted, not only on these plaintiffs, but on all those who suffered in the CIA’s unlawful torture program.”
Suleiman Abdullah Salim tells his story:
Defying Trump’s right-wing agenda from Day One
Inauguration Day is coming up soon, and at Truthout, we plan to defy Trump’s right-wing agenda from Day One.
Looking to the first year of Trump’s presidency, we know that the most vulnerable among us will be harmed. Militarized policing in U.S. cities and at the borders will intensify. The climate crisis will deteriorate further. The erosion of free speech has already begun, and we anticipate more attacks on journalism.
It will be a terrifying four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. But we’re not falling to despair, because we know there are reasons to believe in our collective power.
The stories we publish at Truthout are part of the antidote to creeping authoritarianism. And this year, we promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation, vitriol, hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please show your support for Truthout with a tax-deductible donation (either once today or on a monthly basis).