From the New Yorker:
Who Killed Gul Rahman?Last week, in a review of Marc A. Thiessen’s “Courting Disaster,” I questioned many of Thiessen’s assertions about the use of torture during the Bush years, including his claim that no detainee “deaths in custody took place in the C.I.A. interrogation program.” Now, underscoring that point, the Associated Press has published a remarkable account detailing the death of one detainee held by the C.I.A.
The story, by Adam Goldman and Kathy Gannon, revealed for the first time the name of a suspected Afghan militant who died of exposure in C.I.A. custody on November 20, 2002, in a secret prison, known as the “Salt Pit,” run by the Agency. The suspect, Gul Rahman, reportedly died after having been stripped naked from the waist down and shackled in a cell in which the temperature dipped to approximately thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit. Subsequent forensic examinations determined that he had frozen to death. Rahman was believed to have been in his early thirties, and was suspected of having served as a guard to the Afghan warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was then an ally of Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan but who is currently engaged in possible peace negotiations with the Karzai government.
Until the A.P. disclosed the details, on Sunday, March 28th, the C.I.A. kept the dead man’s name and fate secret for seven years. His wife and four daughters were given no notification of his death. Spokesmen at the Agency have declined to comment on Rahman’s death, or discuss whether officers in charge have been held accountable. The identities of personnel involved in the covert prison program have been wrapped in secrecy.
In an apparent oversight, however, the identity of the manager of the Salt Pit at the time of Rahman’s death appeared recently in a public document. The officer, who continues to work for the C.I.A., is mentioned by name in a footnote in the October, 2009, legal response to allegations of unprofessional conduct filed by lawyers for Jay Bybee, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel. The Bybee document was released last February by the Justice Department. Apparently unnoticed at the time, it revealed both the surname of the Salt Pit manager and the identity of the victim, Rahman.
Read more:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/03/who-killed-gul-rahman.html#ixzz0k9pjjMuJ And the 2nd comment posted:
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