After September 11, 2001, U.S. officials authorized the cruel treatment and torture of prisoners held in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo, and the CIA's secret prisons overseas.

This database documents the U.S. government's official experiment with torture. At present, the database contains well over 100,000 pages of government documents obtained primarily through Freedom of Information Act litigation and requests filed by the ACLU, and through litigation of Salim v. Mitchell, a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of the survivors and the family of a dead victim of the CIA torture program. To learn more about the database, please read the About and Search Help pages. If you're a developer, you can also access this data through our API.

Search Result (83)

Sworn statement of a detainee. States that, following his capture on April 27, 2004, he was put in a compartment so small that he could only sit in it. States he was severely beaten in an attempt to force a confession, threatened with rape, ...

Report on an AR 15-6 inquiry into treatment of a detainee captured by a SEAL team in January 2004. This is the conclusions and findings of the investigator. Several soldiers state that SEALs performed a battlefield interrogation, during which ...

June 30, 2006
UCMJ (Article 15)
Physical assault, General, Threat, Assault/death, Stress positions, Cramped confinement, Other Humiliation
Report on an informal investigation conducted by Brigadier General Richard P. Formica into specific allegations of detainee abuse within CJSOTF-AP [Combined Joint Special Operating Task Force – Arabian Peninsula] and 5th SF [Special Forces] Group ...
This is a sworn Statement by an Army Sergeant assigned to the the Internal Reaction Force at Camp Ganci, Camp Vigilance, and Abu Ghraib Prison Detention Facility. This sworn statement concerns an incident on August 23, 2003, when, after a mortar ...
June 15, 2006
Investigative File (CID), Interview (Statement)
Physical assault, Assault/death, Use of phobias, Threat
This is the Court-martial record of trial with the verbatum transcript of the proceeding of Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits. Spc. Sivits pleaded guilty to some charges and was found guilty of others. The charges were that on November 8, 2003 Spc. ...
Feb. 15, 2006
UCMJ (Court-Martial), Judicial (Transcript)
Jeremy C. Sivits
Physical assault, Sexual, General, Threat, Assault/death, Stress positions, Nudity, Other Humiliation, Sexual, Religious, Forced physical training
This Article 15 procedure was brought against a soldier who was present during an interrogation of a detainee at a jail facility in Iraq. The soldier was accused of punching the detainee with a closed fist; firing a weapon near his head; and ...
Feb. 15, 2006
UCMJ (Article 15)
General, Assault/death, Family/others, Physical assault, Threat
This Army memorandum concerns dismissing certain charges against certain soldiers involved in detainee abuse to avoid Court-Martial proceedings and the legal consequences of such an action. The contents of the memo refers to the soldiers ...
Feb. 15, 2006
Legal Memo, Interview (Statement), UCMJ (Court-Martial)
Raymond Odierno
Raymond T. Odierno
Physical assault, Face slap or insult slap, General, Assault/death, Use of phobias, Threat
This document is a letter from the defense counsel of an accused soldier for an adjournment in the proceedings for the soldier to be assigned new defense counsel and to allow that new counsel to prepare for trial in the matter. The facts of the ...
Feb. 15, 2006
Non-legal Memo, Letter, UCMJ (Article 32)
Sexual, Assault/death, Family/others, Hooding/Goggling, Physical assault, Threat, Environmental manipulation
Detainee alleged he was detained with a bag over his head for 14 days, was beat in the stomach and kidney, hit on the lips, thrown into concertina wire. He states that all his statements were made under torture. When the detainee was initially ...
Feb. 15, 2006
Investigative File (CID)
Physical assault, Face slap or insult slap, General, Threat, Assault/death

This document is the Court Martial - charge and prosecution package for Specialist Charles A. Graner, Jr. of the 372nd Military Police Company. SPC Graner was a key figure in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and this document contains the ...