Bruce Jessen

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CIA Psychologists to Face Waterboarded Defendants

James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen must testify in a pretrial hearing in 9/11 case

(Newser) - The trial of five men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks doesn't begin until next year, notes NPR . But a crucial pretrial hearing gets underway this week featuring the two psychologists who designed the harsh interrogation techniques, roundly described as torture, used by the CIA to elicit statements. James...

Family of CIA 'Salt Pit' Victim: Where Is His Body?

No one's been told what happened to Gul Rahman's remains after he died in Afghan prison in 2002

(Newser) - He died "starved, sleepless, and freezing" more than 15 years ago in an Afghan prison cell, and now his family wants to know where his body is. In what an ACLU attorney calls a "failure of basic human decency," the CIA is being accused by relatives of...

CIA Told Psychologists They'd Be to Blame for Terrorist Nuke

It was part of pressure on them to continue harsh interrogation techniques

(Newser) - The two psychologists who were handsomely paid by the CIA to devise harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding say they had reservations about using them but were pressured by US security officials to keep going. "They kept telling me every day a nuclear bomb was going to be exploded...

Psychologists Who Designed CIA Torture Methods Sued

ACLU says program was 'unlawful,' 'barbaric'

(Newser) - The psychologists who were paid $81 million to devise "enhanced interrogation" techniques for the CIA may have to give some of that money to two men who survived the interrogations—and the family of one who didn't. The ACLU has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of three...

Psychologists Were Paid $81M to Devise CIA Tortures

Air Force retirees had never carried out real interrogation

(Newser) - A pair of retired Air Force psychologists who had never interrogated anybody before were paid a fortune to devise the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program, according to yesterday's Senate Intelligence Committee report . The psychologists—identified in earlier reports as Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen—helped develop interrogation techniques...

CIA Promised to Cover $5M in Legal Fees for Waterboarders

Psychologists first known waterboarders in secret prisons

(Newser) - The CIA secretly agreed to pay at least $5 million in legal fees for two contractors who designed interrogations and repeatedly waterboarded detainees, say former US officials. Whereas CIA agents generally receive agency-paid insurance for potential legal bills, psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the first individuals to have been...

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