Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

In late 2001, Pakistani authorities apprehended al-Libi and turned him over to US custody,
which transferred him to the US-run detention and interrogation facility at Bagram. 379 At
Bagram he was interrogated by FBI agents, who reportedly developed a rapport with him to
the point where he was asking for asylum in the US and agreeing to testify in other cas-
es. 380 After this, however, the CIA, believing they could obtain even more information from
him with harsher interrogation techniques, took control of the interrogation over FBI
objections. 381 Afterwards, the CIA sent al-Libi to Egypt, where he was subjected to ill-
treatment by Egyptian authorities, 382 which produced false information linking Saddam
Hussein with al Qaeda. 383
Specifically, the interrogators questioned al-Libi about al Qaeda’s connections to Iraq, a
subject about which al-Libi said he knew nothing and had difficulty even coming up with a
story. 384 His interrogators reportedly did not like his response. Al-Libi said he was then put
in small box, approximately 50 x 50 centimeters (20 by 20 inches—the depth of the box
was not provided), for about 17 hours, “knocked over with a thrust across the chest,” and
then “punched for 15 minutes.” 385 After this, he came up with a story about Iraq having
agreed to provide two al Qaeda operatives with chemical or biological weapons training. 386
379 Mayer, The Dark Side, p. 104; Isikoff and Corn, Hubris, p. 120.
380 Some of the intelligence gathered during these sessions was information about 1) an al Qaeda plot to blow up the US
Embassy in Aden, Yemen; 2) Richard Reid, the so-called “shoe bomber,” who attempted to detonate plastic explosives
during a flight from Paris to Miami on December 20, 2001; and 3) co-conspirator in the September 11 attacks Zacarias
Moussaoui. Mayer, The Dark Side, p. 104-06; Isikoff and Corn, Hubris, p. 120-24.
381 According to FBI sources who described the incident to some journalists, while FBI officer Russell Fincher, who had
established a bond with al-Libi, was questioning him, a CIA officer named “Albert” stormed in and started shouting at al-Libi.
“You’re going to Egypt!” he yelled. While there, he said to al-Libi: “I’m going to find your mother and f--- her.” Isikoff and Corn,
Hubris, p. 120-21. (The accounts of Isikoff and Mayer differ only slightly).
382 “We believed that al-Libi was withholding critical threat information at the time, so we transferred him to a third country for
further debriefing.” George Tenet and Bill Harlow, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: Harper Collins,
2007), p. 353. Earlier in his book, Tenet says that al-Libi provided information to the Egyptians about a nuclear threat that he
later recanted—indicating that the “third country” in question was indeed Egypt. Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, p. 269.
383 US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Postwar Findings about Iraq’s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and
How They Compare with Prewar Assessments,” September 8, 2006, (“SSCI Sept. 8, 2006 report”),
http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf (accessed June 2, 2012), p. 82.
384 SSCI Sept. 8, 2006 Report, p. 82. See also Isikoff and Corn, Hubris, p. 424.
385 SSCI Sept. 8, 2006 Report, p. 81. Ibid.
386 SSCI Sept. 8, 2006 Report, p. 80-81; Isikoff and Corn, Hubris, p. 424.
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