Tag Archives: John Durham

DOJ Believes Kidnapping and Murder ‘Not a Big Deal’

03 Jul

 

Despite more than 100 cases of abuse reports, the Department of Justice decides to only pursue two fatalities linked to CIA interrogations and renditions.

June 30, 2011

Ken Dilanian, LA Times— 

The Justice Department has decided not to file criminal charges in the vast majority of cases involving the CIA’s former interrogation, detention and kidnapping program.

In a statement to CIA employees on his last day as director, Leon E. Panetta said Thursday that after an examination of more than 100 instances in which the agency allegedly had contact with terrorism detainees, Assistant U.S. Atty. John Durham decided that further investigation was warranted in just two cases. Each of those cases resulted in a death.

Manadel al-Jamadi's widow and son hold a photograph of torturer Sabrina Harman smiling over his frozen corpse.

Panetta, who is to be sworn in as Defense secretary Friday, did not disclose specifics about those cases, but it has been widely reported that one involves Manadel Jamadi, who died in 2003 at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after he was beaten while being questioned in a shower by a CIA interrogator.

“Both cases were previously reviewed by career federal prosecutors who subsequently declined prosecution,” Panetta said.

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., who announced the CIA investigations in August 2009, followed Panetta’s announcement with a statement that confirmed the decision but did not explain it. Beyond the two detainee deaths, “the department has determined that an expanded criminal investigation of the remaining matters is not warranted,” Holder said.

The announcements mean that no CIA officer will face prosecution in connection with interrogations that the agency’s inspector general and a Justice Department official under former President George W. Bush concluded had exceeded what lawyers had authorized.

For example, a 2004 CIA inspector general’s report concluded that the way the CIA practiced waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, was harsher than Bush administration lawyers had envisioned in the memos they wrote signing off on it. The memos were later criticized as badly reasoned, and many lawyers believe waterboarding was never legal.

Three detainees, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, were waterboarded. Obama administration officials, and an investigation by Senate Democrats, have concluded the techniques yielded no real intelligence value, though former Bush administration officials hotly disagree.

Panetta praised the decision not to file charges in most cases, as did Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who chairs the House Intelligence Committee.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who succeeds Panetta as CIA director, told the Senate Intelligence Committee last week that “it is time to take the rear-view mirrors off the bus with respect to certain actions out there.”

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union disagreed.

Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union:

“While we welcome the announcement that the Justice Department will conduct a full criminal investigation into the deaths of two prisoners in CIA custody, it is difficult to understand the prosecutor’s conclusion that only those two deaths warrant further investigation. For a period of several years, and with the approval of the Bush administration’s most senior officials, the CIA operated an interrogation program that subjected prisoners to unimaginable cruelty and violated both international and domestic law. The narrow investigation that Attorney General Holder announced today is not proportionate to the scale and scope of the wrongdoing.”

 

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Posted by aseerun on July 3, 2011 in News Items

 

Tags: Abu Ghraib, ACLU, CIA, Department of Justice, DOJ, John Durham, Leon E. Panetta, Manadel Jamadi, rendition, torture

Department of Justice opens grand jury on CIA detainee’s death

20 Jun

June 14, 2011, Georgetown SLB

06/14/11: The Miami Herald reports that the Justice Department has opened a torture and war crimes grand jury investigation into the interrogation and death of a prisoner at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, a person close to the investigation said Tuesday. The death has been known to the public for years and has been investigated repeatedly. The grand jury in northern Virginia is a sign that the Justice Department is still not ready to close the book on the 2003 homicide of prisoner Manadel al-Jamadi.

06/13/11: TIME reports that it has obtained a copy of a subpoena signed by John Durham, a prosecutor tasked with investigating alleged illegal activities carried out by CIA officers. The subpoena says “the grand jury is conducting an investigation of possible violations of federal criminal laws involving War Crimes (18 USC/2441), Torture (18 USC 243OA) and related federal offenses.”

05/18/11: The Miami Herald reports that House intelligence chairman Mike Rogers says the Justice Department should stop investigating CIA interrogators for alleged abuse of detainees under the Bush administration. Rogers says the interrogators’ work helped lead to the killing of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, obtained by The Associated Press, the Michigan Republican says the interrogation program was a “vital part of the chain” that led to the successful raid on bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan two weeks ago. The Justice Department on Tuesday said “no comment.”

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Posted by aseerun on June 20, 2011 in News Items

 

Tags: Abu Ghraib, CIA, Iraq, John Durham, Manadel al-Jamadi, torture, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

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