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)

Investigation into a recordable compact disc containing images of suspected detainee abuse in in Afghanistan between January 11 and January 19, 2004. The images on the CD depicted U.S. soldiers holding weapons on hooded and bound local ...

Nov. 08, 2004
Investigative File (CID)
Physical assault, Threat, Assault/death, Environmental manipulation, Hooding/Goggling

FBI letter from T. J. Harrington, Deputy Assistant Director, FBI to Gen. Ryder Major General US Army Criminal Investigation Command describing three (3) situations observed by FBI agents of highly aggressive interrogation techniques/assault ...

Report details the actions taken by the investigating agent for CID# 0212-04-0O259-80249. Detainee's statement alleges that when he was taken, his child was thrown into a wall and his wife hit in the back with a rifle butt. While held in ...
Sept. 20, 2005
Investigative File (CID)
Physical assault, Face slap or insult slap, Family/others, Other, Threat

Statement of Sergeant First Class who served as an interrogator. Describes interrogations, and states that only specific interrogators conduct interrogations. Continues, "Our command has authorization to detain people longer than 72 ...

A Marine provided a statement in which he/she described various incidents of abuse that he/she either witnessed or heard about while stationed at an unknown detention facility. In the first incident, occurring on or about July 3, 2004, the ...
Jan. 02, 2007
Interview (Statement)
Khalid Rashd Ali al Muri, Jamal Malik al Harith
Physical assault, General, Threat, Other Humiliation, Forced physical training, Other
CID Report of investigation into detainee's allegations of abuse while in U.S. custody at Mosul Airport, Iraq, over three day period. The detainee claimed to have sustained a bruise to his left shoulder and scratched during his capture. Once in ...
This US Marine Corp spreadsheet lists twenty-one (21) cases of alleged detainee abuse. The table of cases includes ten (10) substantiated incidents and eleven (11) unsubstantiated incidents. The incidents include: beating detainees with fists; ...
Nov. 23, 2004
Chart/List
Physical assault, Sexual, General, Threat, Assault/death, Use of electricity

Detainee alleged that he was captured in mid-April, 2004 at his house in Ammaria (Al Amiryah), Iraq, held at a U.S. facility in Ammaria, then transferred to Baghdad Airport and, finally, Abu Ghraib. The detainee alleged that, at Ammaria, two ...

Dec. 30, 2004
Investigative File (CID)
Jacqueline J. Scott, John Peterson
Physical assault, General, Threat, Assault/death, Other Humiliation
Investigation prompted by NYT article containing victim's allegations of torture and abuse during detention in Abu Ghraib from November 29 through December 31, 2003. Investigation concludes there is not “sufficient evidence to prove or disprove ...
Investigations into numerous alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison and Al-Ademeya Palace based on reports from CACI and Titan translation employees. Alleged abuses include the physical beatings and humiliation of various detainees, forced exercise ...