Secret Prisons of the CIA

• Summary: Shortly after the Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sep. 11, 2001, the CIA established a network of secret prisons outside the United States where it held suspected terrorists. The prisoners were neither charged with a crime nor represented by lawyers. President George W. Bush justified the prison network on grounds that terrorism was an unconventional threat. Bush also denied allegations that the CIA used torture to extract information from the suspects. At least one report, in The New Yorker magazine, alleged that an International Red Cross report on the prisons concluded that illegal forms of torture had been used in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Revelation of the secret prisons brought condemnation from officials in Europe, and questions about their legality in the United States. Bush said the program had ended by September 2006. A report by the Council of Europe issued in June 2007 concluded that the CIA established secret prisons in Poland and Romania, and possibly in other European locations. Romania and Poland denied the allegations by the Council of Europe. Days before the report by the Council of Europe, a coalition of six British and American civil liberties organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, published a list of 39 people they said were thought to be held in secrete prisons. The 39 names included citizens of Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan and Spain. The United States has said the program of secret prisons ended with the transfer of prisoners to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. News reports later indicated that 30 so-called "ghost prisoners" who were held in the system remained unaccounted for in 2007, and that the CIA may have resumed holding prisoners in secret locations.

In November 2005, The Washington Post reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was operating a network of secret prisons outside the United States where suspected terrorists were held and interrogated. The report was confirmed in June 2007 by a European Commission report that concluded such prisons had been operated in Poland and Romania, among other places.

Government statements by both Romania and Poland denied the allegations by the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe also said that Czechoslovakia had refused to cooperate with its investigation.

Six days after the Post report, President George W. Bush defended American actions without explicitly confirming the prison network. Nonetheless, ten months later in September 2006, Bush acknowledged that 14 prisoners had been transferred from such prisons to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and said there were no more secret prisons or prisoners. In acknowledging the secret prison program, Bush justified the practice as necessary to prevent future attacks on the U.S.

A year after Bush's statement, The Washington Post published another article reporting that use of secret prisons had resumed in March 2007. The Washington Post report also said that 30 prisoners once held by the CIA remained unaccounted for as their names were not on the list of prisoners sent to Guantánamo and no other accounting had been made by the United States. Some of the "ghost prisoners" were thought to have been sent to their native countries where they may be held incommunicado.

Among high-ranking Al Qaeda leaders who were held at the secret prisons was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the purported mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and thought to be the third-highest official of Al Qaeda. Others included Abu Zubaydah; Ramzi Binalshibh, another purported "mastermind" of 9/11; and Hambali (Riduan Isamuddin), who was accused of being the senior leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, an Al Qaeda ally in Indonesia.

Revelations of the secret CIA prisons touched off a firestorm of criticism, especially in Europe. Civil rights organizations denounced the prisons as violations of the Geneva Conventions, as did, reportedly, a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

President Bush insisted that no laws were broken and that the U.S. did not practice torture. At the same time, however, the administration lobbied to exempt CIA officials from prosecution or lawsuits under laws that provide punishment for torture, and a controversy arose over just what constituted "torture." Officials in the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel were reported to have issued opinions that took a much narrower view of "torture" than previously accepted definitions.

Integral to the issue of the secret prisons were two other questions: whether the prisoners had been tortured, and whether the right of habeas corpus applied to prisoners captured by the CIA but held outside the United States.

Bush described use of an "alternative set of procedures" used to glean information about other terrorist plots. Among the "alternative" interrogation techniques reportedly used in the CIA prisons were "waterboarding"a form of controlled drowninginduced hypothermia, and depriving detainees of sleep until they are made ill.

Critics of the CIA program focused on possible violations of the Geneva Conventions, which could make CIA agents liable to arrest and criminal prosecution. To prevent this, the Bush administration asked Congress to pass legislation that would explicitly state that the CIA agents were acting under U.S. law and that their activities did not violate international treaties. This was one part of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, signed by Bush in October. In September 2006, The Washington Post reported that "CIA counter-terrorism officers have signed up in growing numbers for a government-reimbursed, private insurance plan that would pay their civil judgments and legal expenses if they are sued or charged with criminal wrongdoing" in connection with prisoner detention and interrogation.

In defending the secret prison program, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "One of the difficult issues in this new kind of conflict is what to do with captured individuals who we know or believe to be terrorists. The individuals come from many countries and are often captured far from their original homes. Among them are those who are effectively stateless, owing allegiance only to the extremist cause of transnational terrorism. Many are extremely dangerous. And some have information that may save lives, perhaps even thousands of lives."

Secret Prisons and the Courts

Habeas Corpus was a legal issue that covered both prisoners held by the military at Guantánamo Bay and prisoners held in the CIA's secret prisons outside the United States.

There was some evidence that the CIA considered this issue in deciding where to locate the prisons. An earlier thought, according to news reports, was to imprison terrorist suspects on a ship anchored in international waters (this was judged impracticable). Another possibility investigated was a remote island, such as rarely visited islands in Zambia's Lake Kariba, from which escape was judged impossible. Doubts about tropical diseases and the trustworthiness of the Zambian government to keep the prisons secret ruled this out.

Some prisoners captured by the CIA in fighting in Afghanistan were for a time held in metal shipping containers on the sprawling Bagram air base. Reports in 2001 indicated that some of these prisoners died of asphyxiation.

In mid-2002 the CIA established a secret prison in Thailand, which was closed about a year later, and in one Eastern European country. Later, a prison was established in a second country in Eastern Europe. The United States has never confirmed reports by the organization Human Rights Watch that these countries were Poland and Romania where, according to some reports, the CIA used facilities constructed during the Cold War. Poland and Romania officially denied hosting such prisons. ABC News reported in December 2005 that some prisoners had been transferred to "a new CIA facility in the North African desert" without naming the country.

Aside from the issue of torture, another legal issue involved whether imprisoned terrorist suspects were protected by the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of prisoners of war. On June 29, 2006, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that special military tribunals established to try suspected terrorists designated as "enemy combatants" were unconstitutional, and that accused terrorists had the rights protected by the Geneva Conventions even if they were not soldiers of a nation-state.

This case led the administration to propose a new law, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, that was passed in September 2006. This law coincided with Bush's statement that 14 suspected terrorists had been transferred from CIA secret prisons to Guantánamo Bay.

In addition to legal challenges in the U.S., the secret prisons story prompted the European Commission, as well as the International Red Cross, to launch investigations about possible legal violations of European law and of the Geneva Conventions. A report published by The New Yorker magazine in August 2007 quoted anonymous sources as saying the International Red Cross report, which has been kept secret, possibly to protect the IRC's access to remaining prisoners held at Guantánamo, had described CIA interrogation techniques in the secret prisons as "tantamount to torture" and had, in the words of the magazine, "declared that American officials responsible for the abusive treatment could have committed serious crimes," specifically "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Torture Act of 1994.

In November 2005 a leading European Commission official said any country found to have hosted secret prisons would have its voting rights suspended and threatened Romania with having its admission to the union postponed.

A report by the European Parliament in November 2006 concluded that ''many governments cooperated passively or actively'' with the CIA in secretly kidnapping, transporting, or detaining terrorism suspects. The report said at least 11 governments had knowledge of the CIA's operations, naming Britain, Italy, and Germany as being among them. The European Parliament report followed a similar, earlier statement by the Council of Europe, a human rights organization, written by Swiss parliamentarian Dick Marty stating that an informal meeting of European and NATO foreign ministers, including Condoleezza Rice, in December 2005 confirmed that EU "member states had knowledge of the program of extraordinary rendition and secret prisons."

In June 2007 Marty announced that his investigation into the alleged CIA prisons had confirmed their existence in both Poland and Romania. Marty's report, released on June 7 said: "What was previously just a set of allegations is now proven."

The report relied on analysis of aviation records, buttressed by interviews with intelligence agents in the U.S. and in Europe, including some from the CIA counter-terrorism branch. It described a typical scenario in which the CIA regularly filed false flight plans in Europe, claiming various destinations in northern Europe but actually landing in Poland.

The facility cited by Marty's report as being the main CIA jail was at Stare Kjekuty, Poland, where it is thought high-profile terrorism suspects from Al Qaeda were held. Suspects considered more ordinary were held at a military base in Romania. The report also concluded that the jails were staffed entirely by CIA agents.

Coinciding with the European Commission report two months after Bush stated that the secret prisons had been emptied, six human rights groups (Amnesty International, Cageprisoners, and Reprieve in Britain; Human Rights Watch, Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice in the United States) issued a statement alleging that 39 people were still being held in secret prisons despite American government statements that the prisons had been discontinued. The report listed 39 people from Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan, and Spain as those still missing and alleged to be in U.S. custody.

In 2022, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling specified that details pertaining to the controversial facilities could be deemed classified information. As such, U.S. federal agencies, such as the CIA, were not compelled to disclose such information nor to respond to inquiries for the same materials.

Chronology of Secret Prisons

Mid-2002: The CIA established a secret prison in Thailand and one in an unnamed Eastern European country to hold Al Qaeda prisoners.

Nov. 2005: The first reports of secret prisons were made by The Washington Post.

Sep. 6, 2006: President Bush said 14 prisoners from a secret prison network were transferred to Guantánamo Bay, and that there were no more secret prisons or prisoners.

Nov. 2006: A European Parliament report concluded that at least 11 governments had knowledge of CIA operations.

Mar. 2007: According to news reports, CIA resumed use of secret prisons at undisclosed locations.

Aug. 2007:The New Yorker magazine revealed a secret Red Cross report described CIA interrogation techniques in the secret prisons "as tantamount to torture."

June 2007: Marty said the existence of secret prisons in Poland and Romania "is now proven."

2007 -2014: New revelations and more detailed information was detailed in press reporting. The CIA handed custody of most prisoners to U.S. law enforcement and the U.S. military for prosecution.

2024: 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, pled guilty in a plea deal with U.S. military officials. The agreement was later revoked by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

Lingering Issues

In the years leading up to the 2020s, more detailed information concerning the CIA operation came to light. Information that had previously been restricted was declassified. In the 2024 trial of captured Al-Qaeda leader Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi—held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Air Station—jurors were provided detailed descriptions of a former CIA "black site" holding cell. Forensic photography of various black site cells was displayed to jury members at Hadi's trial. They showed small, approximately six-foot chambers and windowless cells where prisoners were isolated.

In light of the negative public scrutiny garnered by the CIA over its prison program, many questioned the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques employed by the CIA. Many experts maintain information gleaned from such methods was unreliable. Prisoners subjected to these techniques simply fabricated the information they thought their captors wanted to hear to avoid punishment. CIA officials, nonetheless, asserted their interrogation methods were indeed needed, and prevented future attacks and American fatalities.

Law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, adopted a policy to acquire new legal statements from prisoners such that they could be admissible at trial. In 2024, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, reached a plea deal with U.S. military officials. In exchange for an admission of guilt, Mohammed would not be subjected to the death penalty. The evidence that formed the basis of the charges against Mohammed stemmed from information gathered by the FBI, not the CIA. The arrangement collapsed after U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin withdrew the plea deal.

Bibliography

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