Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

I was approached by a tall, thin officer from the army [he was in uniform]
who told me he was American. He was bald, but not naturally—his head
was shaved. He had a lamp with a light on his head and was with a translator.
And the room was totally dark—the only light in there was the light on
his head. He started threatening me. He said, ‘Now we can kill you and no
one will know. We want to hear about your last plan to strike America. All of
what you said in Peshawar, we are not interested in that. We want new
things now. 163
Later this army officer would suddenly be very nice to Sharif, asking if his leg was hurting
and promising to get him some medical attention for it.
Shoroeiya said that within the complex, there were several types of rooms. One was a group
of rooms where he was interrogated. Another set of rooms were freezing cold and were used
to submerge the prisoners in icy water while lying on plastic sheeting on the ground. A third
set of rooms he called the “torture rooms,” where they used specific instruments. One of
these instruments was a wood plank that they used to abuse him with water.
Although he did not refer to the abuse he received as waterboarding, the abuse he described
fit that description. 164
163 Bashmilah also described an American official with a shaved head that he concluded was responsible for the harsh
torture of certain other prisoners including Adnan al-Libi (Maghrebi). Bashmilah nicknamed this American “Kojak.” See
Bashmilah Declaration, paras. 69-70.
164 Waterboarding was one of 12 Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs) the CIA requested permission to use. See
“Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility Report,” (DOJ OPR Report, July 29, 2009), July 29, 2009,
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/OPRFinalReport090729.pdf (accessed August 27, 2012), p. 35-36. The CIA’s request
describes waterboarding in the following manner: “The subject is restrained on a bench with his feet elevated above his
head. His head is immobilized and an interrogator places a cloth over his mouth and nose while pouring water onto the cloth.
Airflow is restricted for twenty to forty seconds; the technique produces the sensation of drowning and suffocation.” DOJ OPR
Report, July 29, 2009, p. 36. The Department of Justice approved the use of waterboarding on August 1, 2001. “Office of Legal
Counsel, Memorandum for John Rizzo, Acting General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency, Re: Interrogation of an al
Qaeda Operative,” August 1, 2002, http://media.luxmedia.com/aclu/olc_08012002_bybee.pdf (accessed August 26, 2012),
p. 11. See also reference to a “classified Bybee memo” also approving the techniques on pages 1-2. DOJ OPR Report, July 29,
2009, p. 68.
47 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | SEPTEMBER 2012