'Vomiting and screaming' in destroyed waterboarding tapes [View all]

[kpete]

'Vomiting and screaming' in destroyed waterboarding tapes

Secret CIA video tapes of the waterboarding of Osama Bin Laden's suspected jihadist travel arranger Abu Zubaydah show him vomiting and screaming, the BBC has learned.

The tapes were destroyed by the head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, Jose Rodriguez.

In an exclusive interview for Newsnight, Rodriguez has defended the destruction of the tapes and denied waterboarding and other interrogation techniques amount to torture.

The CIA tapes are likely to become central to the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, at Guantanamo Bay.

'Vomiting and screaming' in destroyed waterboarding tapes
By Peter Taylor
BBC Newsnight

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When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appeared before a special military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay last Saturday, he refused to put on the headphones that would enable him to hear the translator.

His civilian attorney, David Nevin, said he could not wear them because of the torture he had suffered during his interrogation.


Waterboarding, which simulates drowning, was used in the interrogation of three al-Qaeda suspects
His "torture" at the hands of his CIA interrogators at a secret "black site" to which he had been rendered, included being deprived of sleep for over a week, standing naked, wearing only a nappy, and being waterboarded 183 times.

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Most people would probably call them "torture", but Jose Rodriguez disputes this term.


MORE:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17990955