Links
Rape threats used to scare detainees into confessing, Khadr hearing told
Terrifying threats of dying from multiple gang rape "by four big black guys" who would catch little Afghan boys in the shower of a U.S. prison were used by interrogators at Bagram to scare detainees into confessing, Omar Khadr's lead interrogator admitted today.
"It was a factious story that we made up" because we knew "Afghans were terrified of rape," the interrogator said.
The story sometimes involve hulking "neo Nazis," sometimes "big black guys," but detainees were told that even though they were inmates they were still "patriots who were upset and and mad over the 9-11 attacks." The story sometimes ended with the Afghan boy dying from repeated penetrations from gang rape, Interrogator 1 said.
It also emerged that war crimes prosecutors offered the testifying former interrogator - who was later convicted of beating and assaulting detainees at Bagram - an immunity deal although it wasn't established in court if the deal was for testimony against Omar Khadr.
Interrogator 1 said he was the lead interrogator for Omar Khadr and interrogated him at Bagram prison in Afghanistan more than two dozen times in the weeks after the severely-injured 15-year-old was captured in a firefight during which an American solider was killed.
Mr. Khadr faces a war crimes trial on murder and terrorism charges under the Bush-era military commissions revised by and still in use by President Barack Obama's administration.