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 (172)

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, ...
Sworn statement by a Iraqi national who became a detainee at Abu Ghraib with member of his family. He claims that his brother was with the Saddam regime and when he went to visit his sister in Iraq he was taken in to custody as a detainee and ...

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 ...

Sargent Taylor was accused of dereliction of duty by not preventing Iraqi detainees from being abused by soldiers under his command. Specifically, detainees were locked in abandoned tanks; sprayed with fire extinguishers; and had shots fired ...

June 15, 2006
UCMJ (Court-Martial)
Alan R. Taylor
Physical assault, Threat, Assault/death

Sargent Travis was accused of cruelty; maltreatment; attempted assault by battery; conspiracy to maltreat; and dereliction of duty. Specifically, he conspired, witnessed and encouraged electrocution of a detainee by PFC Andrew J Sting, then ...

June 15, 2006
Photograph, UCMJ (Court-Martial)
Matthew K. Travis
Physical assault, Threat, Assault/death, Use of electricity
Private First Class Trefny was accused of conspiracy to assault; disobedience of a superior commissioned officer; dereliction of duty; cruelty and maltreatment of a detainee; making false statements; and aggravated assault. Specifically, he ...
June 15, 2006
Photograph, UCMJ (Court-Martial)
Jeremiah J. Trefny
Physical assault, Threat, Assault/death
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
During a raid, jointly conducted by U.S. Marine Corps personnel with the 24th MEU (SOC) and Iraqi National Guards (INGs), a weapons cache was found. It was alleged that ING personnel slapped the owner of the home during an interrogation and shot ...
May 15, 2006
Investigative File
Physical assault, General, Threat, Assault/death
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