Rendered, Tortured & Discarded: Exposé Tells Innocent Man's Ordeal in US Prisons Abroad

[The Northerner]

DemocracyNow.org - A new exposé by human rights investigator Clara Gutteridge for The Nation magazine looks at secret U.S. operations in Africa and how the United States rendered, tortured and discarded one innocent man from Tanzania. Suleiman Abdallah was captured in Mogadishu in 2003 by a Somali warlord and handed over to U.S. officials, who had him rendered to Afghanistan for five years of detention and torture. Imprisoned in three different U.S. facilities, Abdallah said he was subjected to severe beatings, prolonged solitary confinement, forced nakedness and humiliation. He said he was also sexual assaulted, locked naked in a coffin and forced to lie on a wet mat, naked and handcuffed. Abdallah was finally released in July 2008 from Bagram Air Force Base, with a piece of paper confirming his innocence. However, he has received neither reparations nor apologies for his ordeal. "The worst of the torture we're not authorized to talk about because it's too painful for him," Gutteridge says. "What I can say is he was subjected to some of the worst torture I have ever encountered after interviewing over 100 U.S. victims."

[Quantess]

1. How long has the US been torturing suspects in secret prisons?

Has this been going on forever but it has recently become worse?