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 (42)

Investigation into the death of Hamza Hassad Tawfeek Najm Byaty. Mr. Byaty had been detained at Baghdad International Airport and was being transported in a bus when he became short of breath, hypotensive, and tachycardic. An IV briefly ...

Dec. 30, 2004
Investigative File (CID)
John Peterson
Hamza Hassad Tawfeek Najm Byaty, Zaid Muhammed Tariq, Taleb Ehad Kazen, Abed Mohammed Najem, Dahm Spah

Detainee alleged that U.S. forces captured him and took him to Dhyla Al Mokhadia Base, an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps location, where he was deprived of food and water for three days with his hands tied and eyes blindfolded.  He alleged ...

Dec. 30, 2004
Investigative File (CID)
John Peterson, Jacqueline J. Scott
Physical assault, General, Dietary manipulation, Environmental manipulation, Hooding/Goggling