Bush-Era CIA Torture Victims May Finally Get Their Day In Court


A landmark ruling last week allowed three victims of CIA torture to proceed with a lawsuit against the two psychologists who made millions designing and implementing the George W. Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogations.”

As Liberal America has reported, the two surviving victims of torture and the family of one victim who died in CIA custody filed suit against psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen last fall. Their firm received $81 million from the CIA for their program of creating “learned helplessness” in prisoners by inflicting on them such treatments as sleep deprivation, forced nudity, exposure to cold temperatures and painful “stress positions.”

Some of the details of the prisoners’ treatment are excruciating just to read about. For example, plaintiff Suleiman Abdullah Salim:

“Salim’s torture began before he even entered a CIA prison. After he was abducted from Somalia, CIA personnel cut off his clothes, forced an object into his anus and photographed him, the ACLU alleges in its complaint. They then put him in a diaper and clothed him, covering his head with a hood, goggles, and headphones. From there, they boarded him onto a small aircraft where he was shackled to the ground.

[…]

Salim recalled one method in which CIA personnel forced him to lay on a sheet of plastic while they beat him and poured ice-cold water on him, before rolling him up in the plastic sheet. They repeatedly alternated between interrogating him and putting him back on the ground for the cold water treatment.”

The Senate ‘torture report’ was a game changer

In the past, such lawsuits have been thrown out based on the government’s claim that national security is at risk. But the details of the three plaintiffs’ treatment were already revealed in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence “torture report.” The Justice Department attorney says he’s optimistic of working out an agreement that protects sensitive information while moving ahead with discovery and releasing relevant documents for evidence.

In a hearing last week, federal Judge Justin Quackenbush denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case based on the claim that Mitchell and Jessen are immune from civil liability. That doesn’t mean they are not immune but that the judge will rule on that later and allow the case to proceed in the meanwhile.

Despite the fact that there are still many roadblocks ahead for the plaintiffs this is a huge deal. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the plaintiffs, explains why:

“Those responsible for the CIA torture program have never had to face their victims’ claims in a U.S. court because the government has always shielded the perpetrators. Until now.”

Watch Salim’s heartbreaking description of being tortured and the flashbacks he still suffers, below, from the ACLU.

Photo by Eric Draper, Courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, available on Wikimedia Commons under public domain

Ellen Brodsky is a long time blogger for NewsHounds.us and a contributor to Crooks and Liars. She has also worked as a researcher for Brave New Films' landmark documentary, "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" and "Iraq for Sale."