Judge Orders Hearing on Destroyed CIA Tapes

(NEWSER) - A Guantanamo inmate recently released to his native Afghanistan after almost 7 years of detention plans to sue the US for damages, the AP reports. Mohammed Jawad is considered one of the youngest prisoners held at the Cuban base—he claims he was 12 at the time he was captured, though the Justice Department maintains he was 17. “I was an innocent child when they put me in prison,” says Jawad, who claims he was tortured there. More»

(NEWSER) - AG Eric Holder today named a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture against CIA operatives who interrogated terror suspects during the Bush administration, the Washington Post reports. John Durham, who is currently probing the destruction of interrogation tapes, will look into fewer than 12 cases detailed in a CIA report released today and determine if a full-scale investigation is warranted. The Bush-era Justice Department investigated and dismissed the cases. More»

(AP) - A newly declassified CIA report says interrogators threatened to kill the children of a Sept. 11 suspect. The document, released today by the Justice Department, says one interrogator said a colleague had told Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that if any other attacks happened in the United States, "We're going to kill your children." More»

Program could lead to prisoner abuse, bad intel, critics say

(NEWSER) - The Obama administration is stepping up its reliance on foreign allies to capture, interrogate, and detain mid-level terror suspects seized outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, the New York Times reports. In the last 10 months, Middle Eastern governments have handled the cases of about six al-Qaeda operatives. “It’s the preferred method now,” said a former official, but some activists are worried. More»

Operation's architects lacked training in conducting interrogations, say CIS records

(NEWSER) - Two US psychologists with no training in conducting interrogations boasted of earning $1000 a day designing and helping to implement use of waterboarding techniques on CIA detainees, reports ABC News. Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, former military officers, are considered the architects of the interrogation operation that Barack Obama has labeled torture. More»