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Prisoner's Self-Portraits of C.I.A. Torture Surface From Sealed Court Record [View all]
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/us/politics/guantanamo-prisoner-drawings-torture.htmlfree link: https://archive.ph/30tyW
Alone in his cell with only dark thoughts of desperate times, the prisoner put pencil to paper and drew detailed portraits of how American agents tortured him 20 years ago.
Some of it was self-administered therapy of sorts for the prisoner, a Malaysian man named Mohammed Farik Bin Amin. The United States held him for years in solitary confinement, starting in 2003 in a dungeonlike prison run by the C.I.A. in Afghanistan. The Guantánamo prison does not offer specific treatment for people who have been tortured.
Some of it was homework assigned by his lawyer, Christine Funk, who negotiated the plea deal that sent him home on Wednesday. Ms. Funk had asked Mr. Bin Amin to draw what happened to him, rather than find a way to discuss it.
(snip)
Other prisoners have drawn what they remember about being tortured in C.I.A. custody. But for the first time, a former C.I.A. prisoner’s version of what happened to him is now in the record of a trial at the post-9/11 war crimes court, which continues to grapple with the legacy of U.S. state-sponsored torture. And for the first time since they were shown in court, they are being published for the public to see them, here.
Some of it was self-administered therapy of sorts for the prisoner, a Malaysian man named Mohammed Farik Bin Amin. The United States held him for years in solitary confinement, starting in 2003 in a dungeonlike prison run by the C.I.A. in Afghanistan. The Guantánamo prison does not offer specific treatment for people who have been tortured.
Some of it was homework assigned by his lawyer, Christine Funk, who negotiated the plea deal that sent him home on Wednesday. Ms. Funk had asked Mr. Bin Amin to draw what happened to him, rather than find a way to discuss it.
(snip)
Other prisoners have drawn what they remember about being tortured in C.I.A. custody. But for the first time, a former C.I.A. prisoner’s version of what happened to him is now in the record of a trial at the post-9/11 war crimes court, which continues to grapple with the legacy of U.S. state-sponsored torture. And for the first time since they were shown in court, they are being published for the public to see them, here.
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