[JURIST] A Guantanamo [JURIST backgrounder] detainee has alleged that the CIA’s torture techniques went beyond those described in last year’s Senate Intelligence Committee report, Reuters reported [text] Tuesday. Majid Khan was detained in Pakistan in 2003 and confessed to delivering money to al Qaeda used for a bombing in Jakarta that killed 11 people. He also admitted to planning with other al Qaeda members to poison water supplies and blow up gas stations. Khan’s lawyer released interview notes claiming that the CIA interrogators poured ice water on his private areas; video taped him naked while touching his genitals; beat him with sticks, belts, baseball bats, and a hammer; forced him to endure rectal feedings; and kept him in solitary confinement [Baltimore Sun report] for two years. Khan was arraigned last year, and is set to be sentenced next year, facing up to 19 years in prison.

The CIA has been continually accused of torturing terrorist suspects since the attacks on September 11, 2001.
In December the UN Special Rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights [official website] called for the prosecution [JURIST report] of CIA and other government officials for the interrogation and torture of detainees. That same month the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” employed during the Bush administration were deemed to be ineffective [JURIST report], according to the long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee Report. Last September it was claimed [JURIST report] that the CIA used torture methods beyond waterboarding on suspected terrorists, according to a report published by the Telegraph. In late August 10 victims of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program [JURIST news archive] signed an open letter [JURIST report] to US President Barack Obama urging him to declassify the upcoming Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the program.