New Evidence That Hayden Lied: Former Prisoner Claims His Torture Was Taped In 2003
New Evidence That Hayden Lied: Former Prisoner Claims His Torture Was Taped In 2003
Earlier this week, ThinkProgress raised the issue of whether CIA Director Michael Hayden is lying when he claims that “videotaping stopped in 2002.” The New York Times reported that former prisoner Muhammad Bashmilah, who claims “he was held by the C.I.A.,” said he “saw cameras in interrogation rooms after 2002.”
Since then, more evidence has emerged that videotaped interrogations were occurring after 2002. The Chicago Tribune reports that in Feb. 2003, the CIA abducted a man named Abu Omar and rendered him to Egypt. The prisoner, who is now living in Alexandria, Egypt, said he could hear interrogators recording “the sounds of my torture and my cries“:
A suspected terrorist abducted in Italy and flown to Egypt by the CIA said he believed his captors made audiotapes of his extensive interrogations in an Egyptian prison that recorded “the sounds of my torture and my cries.” The prisoner said he was blindfolded but could hear what sounded like a tape cassette being flipped over and reinserted.
“I remember once while being interrogated, the interrogator asked me to wait a second and then I could hear the click of the device and I could hear him changing the cassette,” said Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who spent nearly four years in an Egyptian prison before an Egyptian court ordered his release earlier this year.
The former prisoner also said that, “the first seven months of my imprisonment, right after my kidnapping and arrival in Egypt, the place where I was held had cameras everywhere. There were cameras in the bathrooms, interrogation rooms as well as hallways. The cameras were all over the place.”
In 2005, an Italian judge ordered the arrest of American CIA agents for illegally abducting Abu Omar and torturing him. The case is still being litigated, but all the American defendants “have left Italy, and a senior U.S. official has said they would not be turned over for prosecution even if Rome requests it.”
In response to the new allegations, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent a letter to Director Hayden asking him to answer a series of questions, including:
To your knowledge, have any interrogations of detainees rendered by the CIA been video or audio recorded?
Were any such recordings made at the request of the CIA?
Has the CIA ever reviewed any such recordings?
Have any such recordings ever been in the possession of the CIA?
See Durbin’s full letter to Hayden here. He also wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to determine her level of knowledge about these incidents, and he requested that Attorney General Michael Mukasey include this case as part of his investigation into the CIA’s destruction of tapes.
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63 Responses to “New Evidence That Hayden Lied: Former Prisoner Claims His Torture Was Taped In 2003”
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Hayden lied to Congress…..
This means there will be nasty letters sent to Hayden now, Hayden must be really scared about now. /snark
December 13th, 2007 at 12:13 pmWaterboard Omar a little, just a little, and he’s sure to change his tune.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:13 pmlol Wayne, Yeh, dats da ticket, send him lots of letters…paper cuts are torture. BTW they should send some oranges with those letters so the juice gets into the cuts.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:19 pmAs Keith Olbermann brought up the other day, why is DIRECTOR Hayden, in a civilian post, still wearing his Air Force uniform?
December 13th, 2007 at 12:19 pmgo durbin…
but… a question for anyone:
are the letters simply a method to get the LIES on record?
December 13th, 2007 at 12:20 pmPerhaps he wasn’t lying… perhaps now instead of videotaping torture, the CIA is now electronically recording the interrogations…
Splitting hairs is a cottage industry in the current regime…
December 13th, 2007 at 12:21 pmHayden didn’t lie. He just did what everyone in GDumbya’s administration does on a daily basis — “misunderestimate” the truth.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:22 pmare the letters simply a method to get the LIES on record?
Comment by katy — December 13, 2007 @ 12:20 pm
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IMHO, it’s too late for that.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:23 pmWere Hayden’s lips moving?
December 13th, 2007 at 12:25 pmWhy are we kidnapping foreign nationals, torturing them and letting them go???
December 13th, 2007 at 12:34 pmHey Frank M.,
Would you vote for an Iraq war veteran who served as a Lt. Col, USMC in Iraq?
Another OIF veteran is making a run for congress! He is running against Sen. Mitch McConnell in KY. If he wins, he will be the second OIF veteran in congress (Rep. Patrick Murphy D-PA was the first) and he will be the first OIF vet in the Senate!
December 13th, 2007 at 12:35 pmhttp://vetvoice.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=246#1630
You can do better than that Frank M.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:35 pmAnd the moral of the story is to blow yourself in a market killing hundreds rather than giving the order or the CIA will get you.
Just stick to beating your wive(s) in Burkas and staying off cell phones, like Osama, darn it.
Why didn’t he make a video and distribute it to his friends explaining the whole thing. That would have been a great Jihad tool.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:37 pmYou can do better than that Frank M.
Comment by Xisithrus — December 13, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
Actually he can’t. Sort of sad really.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:38 pmYou can do better than that Frank M.
Comment by Xisithrus — December 13, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
Not really.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:38 pmFrankie is about as lame as they come.
Someone in the Bush Administration lied??? I sure hope this doesn’t stain their mission to restore “credibility and morality” to the Presidents office.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:39 pmFrank M, if, as it seems, you are accepting that he was telling the truth about “there were cameras all over the place”, can you accept that he was telling the truth about this part?
“I remember once while being interrogated, the interrogator asked me to wait a second and then I could hear the click of the device and I could hear him changing the cassette,†said Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar”
I’m not necessarily believing every word this guy says, but, with the Bush administration’s verifiable history of lies that you have apparently believed, I can’t help thinking that there could easily be at least some truth to Omar’s story.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:40 pmWhy didn’t he make a video and distribute it to his friends explaining the whole thing. That would have been a great Jihad tool.
Comment by Joneser — December 13, 2007 @ 12:37 pm
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Probably because he is not a terrorist, which is why the Egyptian government released him. If they thought he was going to “blow himself in a market”, as you suggest, they would not have released him back into their society. No one wants to see that.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:41 pmIf Italy followed the U.S. lead, it would kidnap the accused American citizens, try them in Italian courts, convict them and sentence them under Italian law, and incarcerate (or even execute) them, and all would be legal.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:43 pmYou can do better than that Frank M.
Comment by Xisithrus — December 13, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
I admire your optimism, X, but sadly, I don’t think Frank can do any better. He seems to have been operating at peak efficiency lately, and he’s still among the lamest trolls we have.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:46 pmMakes sense to me that they’d record every interrogation they ever did, so they can get those recordings back to Langley for analysis.
If the County Sherriff does it, why would one hesitate at the idea that the CIA does.
Of course they do - it’s how they do what they do, and they’re not likely to up and tell us about it - they’re the OG’s of Gov’t secrecy.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:47 pmI notice how the White House is not saying a word about Porter Goss who was in charge when the tapes were destroyed. Hayden has to lie as that’s his job. Now I remember he was told he had to take of the uniform when he got the job but still hasn’t. All the talk about Russia getting back to Communist yet it’s really the United States that picking up the Communist habits and rules. The Bush Administration appoints people to follow Dick Cheney’s orders. I love the name of the new DOJ, it’s called the Bush Department of Law.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:48 pmI can’t help thinking that there could easily be at least some truth to Omar’s story.
Comment by Jane E. Schneider — December 13, 2007 @ 12:40 pm
Well….
1. He was kidnapped from Italy, illegally, by US operatives
2. he turned up in Egypt, where was imprisoned without charges and he was allegedly tortured.
3. a honest judge saw the detention as illegal according to Egyptian law and released him.
In the least, there is strong evidence that the US is illegally kidnapping people and secretly moving them to prisons in countries that look the other way as far as torturing goes.
Pretty damning by itself even without the tapes documenting the torture……
December 13th, 2007 at 12:48 pmThe cameras were there just for ambience. riiiiiiiight.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:48 pmYeah, CIA is totally random in their kidnappings.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:49 pmYeah, CIA is totally random in their kidnappings.
Comment by Joneser — December 13, 2007 @ 12:49 pm
###
Evidently they were wrong on this one, or he wouldn’t have been released.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:53 pmHey Joneser, see my comment on #12 - Would you vote for an OIF veteran? If he wins, that makes TWO Iraq veterans serving in congress!
December 13th, 2007 at 12:54 pmMan, Bush has opened up the US for a world of hurt. The next time we hear that someone has been kidnapped and tortured you can bet that it will be said that if the US can do it and get away with it, so can we.
I hope Shrub is proud of himself. He certainly hasn’t made Americans more safer if they happen to leave this country.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:56 pmrandom? doubtful. Ill thought out, probably. For your reading enjoyment:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/ content/ article/ 2005/ 12/ 04/ AR2005120400885.html
Here’s a snippet:
Italian judicial authorities publicly disclosed the CIA operation in the spring. But a review of recently filed court documents and interviews in Milan offer fresh details about how the CIA allegedly spread disinformation to cover its tracks and how its actions in Milan disrupted and damaged a major Italian investigation.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:57 pm“The kidnapping of Abu Omar was not only a serious crime against Italian sovereignty and human rights, but it also seriously damaged counterterrorism efforts in Italy and Europe,” said Armando Spataro, the lead prosecutor in Milan. “In fact, if Abu Omar had not been kidnapped, he would now be in prison, subject to a regular trial, and we would have probably identified his other accomplices.”
The DOJ will find root out the truth!!! give me a break …same ole same ole….
MuKasey..”I think the Justice Department is capable of doing whatever it appears needs to be done,” Mukasey said. “The question of a special prosecutor is the most hypothetical of hypotheticals, and that isn’t going to be faced until it happens. And if it has to be, it will be.”
Mukasey may have a conflict of interest problem already, and may have to call upon a Special Prosecutor.
Jose Padilla’s lawyers argued before the Florida Federal Court that Abu Zubaydah was tortured into saying Padilla was an al Qaeda associate. The DOJ dismissed Padilla’s allegations as “meritless,†asserting Padilla’s legal team could not prove that Abu Zubaydah had been tortured. Well, it’s clear now that they certainly COULD have, if the tapes of the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah had been made available!
Now here is where Mukasey’s role comes into question. U.S. District Judge Mukasey, now attorney general, was the one who signed the warrant used by the FBI to arrest Padilla in May 2002. Court records show the warrant relied in part on information obtained from Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation. So we have a problem Houston.
The Attorney General can only issue a warrant based upon legally obtained evidence, and confessions under torture are certainly not “legally obtainedâ€. So either Mukasey was misrepresented the evidence, and would be liable to be potentially a party in those who were presented with “perjured evidenceâ€; or he knew that torture was used in obtaining the confession and ignored it.
In either case he is unsuitable to run an investigation, as it will, inevitably, involved himself. Thus a Special Prosecutor is necessary.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:58 pmComment by Wayne — December 13, 2007 @ 12:48 pm
I agree, and it certainly jibes with so many other reports about this kind of kidnapping and rendition, but I try not to totally believe that everything anyone says is the ‘gospel’ truth.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:59 pmHey Joneser, see my comment on #12 - Would you vote for an OIF veteran? If he wins, that makes TWO Iraq veterans serving in congress!
Comment by Chris L — December 13, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
I would even vote for a **ODS veteran =)
At this point I am going to vote for anyone not currently in office, total anti-incumbent ( But I live in Texas, so most that I am voting against are Repiglicans )
** I am an Operation Desert Storm veteran.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:59 pm** I am an Operation Desert Storm veteran.
Comment by Wayne — December 13, 2007 @ 12:59 pm
###
Lt Col Andrew Horne served in both OIF and OEF
December 13th, 2007 at 1:01 pmLt Col Andrew Horne served in both OIF and OEF
Comment by Chris L — December 13, 2007 @ 1:01 pm
Sorry that should read OIF and ODS - Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Desert Storm
December 13th, 2007 at 1:02 pmthey were FAKE CAMERAS… like the ones people buy to put
on their homes, for “security” purposes…
uh huh…
December 13th, 2007 at 1:02 pm30 Comment by Chris L — December 13, 2007 @ 12:54 pm3
Vote for him cause he fought in a War? Uh no…. vote for him cause he is qualified and has other ideas to represent my district? Yes.
I don’t do empathy, sympathy or feeling votes.
31…
Are you suggesting that other countries will “lower themselves” and be like us (gasp)
December 13th, 2007 at 1:05 pmVote for him cause he fought in a War?
Comment by Joneser — December 13, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
Not, vote for him because he is speaking out against the war and he has been there an knows what he is talking about. Also vote for him because he is not bought and paid for by K-Street.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:07 pmAs Keith Olbermann brought up the other day, why is DIRECTOR Hayden, in a civilian post, still wearing his Air Force uniform?
Comment by Jane E. Schneider — December 13, 2007 @ 12:19 pm
That’s not his uniform, that’s his skin.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:08 pm40
i agree about 80% of these career politicians are so intangled in their lobbyists they can’t see the forest from the trees. I very much enjoy outside of the box, men and women running. If he has good ideas and isn’t running on one issue and was in my district, sure. But my first frame of reference is not going ot be caus ehe was in a war. I want to know his moxy, his principals, what he wants to change in Congress or strengthen. If I don’t agree, I don’t agree. Hat’s off to the guy though.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:12 pmComment by Joneser — December 13, 2007 @ 1:12 pm
###
Check out the You Tube video
http://vetvoice.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=246#1636
Also:
December 13th, 2007 at 1:14 pmhttp://andrewhorne.org/main/
Hayden lied to congress under oath? That’s called perjury. Why are we not surprised? Because everyone in the entire Bush Cabal has lied through their teeth and repeatedly. Lying appears to be part and parcel of their job description which was composed by our Liar In Chief.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:20 pmComment by Joneser — December 13, 2007 @ 1:12 pm
Hey, I can actually agree with one of your comments!
December 13th, 2007 at 1:20 pmHayden’s just another very typical Bush Liar/Sock Puppet. He’s totally worthless.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:21 pmThe DOJ under Mukasey will be “business as usual” which everyone in Congress knows - yet they voted him in. I just don’t get it. Once the primaries are over, the people need to move their registration as Independent which is the ONLY way to bring the power back to the people.
Just as the special interest groups believe they have these lawmakers “in their pocket”, so does the GOP and DNC. Shifting the power back to the people by their lack of party affiliation will mean that the people will hold sway over the candidates this time around.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:24 pmAll the dems are good for these days is the composition of threatening letters which go into Bush’s circular file instantly. They’re getting as disgusting as the Republicans.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:26 pmAGAIN WITH THE LETTERS……..
December 13th, 2007 at 1:26 pmThe cameras were there just for ambience. riiiiiiiight.
Comment by hellinabucket — December 13, 2007 @ 12:48 pm
You’re overlooking the possibility that the cameras were there to collect material for tha annual holiday party “joke reel”.
Y’now… Interrogator Jack accidentally spills on his best suit while waterboarding a terrorist… the naked pyramid of enemy combatants collapses when one of them sneezes… that kind of HIGH-larious merriment that seems to tickle the right-wingers.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:26 pmOff topic, but damn funny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPnFGVejIsY&NR=1
December 13th, 2007 at 1:30 pmIt seems to me that most have gotten very good at identifying the problem and pointing it out. Next step: actually doing something to fix the problem. It’s all well and good to point out the stinking pile of trash and the need to remove it. However, if you don’t actually remove the trash it’s nothing more than empty talk and the trash pile keeps getting larger and more stinky. If you want to get rid of a problem you have to strike at the root. If you don’t pull a weed up by the root what happens? It grows back. QED
December 13th, 2007 at 1:36 pm45
Comment by Jane E. Schneider — December 13, 2007 @ 1:20 pm
its amazing what can happen when the name calling ceases.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:38 pmBritish MP Edmund Burke
December 13th, 2007 at 1:44 pmThe United States have been torturing people and teaching dictatorships around the globo on techniques of torture. Bush said that there was “stockpiles of WMD in Iraq”, he lied. Bush said that “He had nothing to do with the outing of Valerie Plame”, he lied. Bush said that Iran had an active “Nuclear program persuing nuclear bomb”, he lied. Now he wants me to believe that the USA does not torture????? Ask any Latin American and they will say otherwise! Specially Nicaraguans, Negroponte was there, financing paramilitary terrorist anti-democrat milicias and the CIA than was actively torturing people! HAGE 09! IMPEACH, INDICT, IMPERISON BUSH AND CHENNEY. WATERBOARD RICE, GATES, NEGROPONTE AND THE REST OF THAT LOW SUMBAGS!
December 13th, 2007 at 1:57 pmWATERBOARD FRANK M!
December 13th, 2007 at 1:59 pm55. Comment by sacopenapa — December 13, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
“doobee doo bee doooo..”
December 13th, 2007 at 2:00 pmBeware the penguin.
Hey Waterboard me too…
December 13th, 2007 at 2:01 pmAt least I know i am not going to drown now :D
“the sounds of my torture and my criesâ€
December 13th, 2007 at 2:04 pmHOW LOW CAN THE USA GET????!!!! THE WORLD IS WATCHING, BUT THE WAR CRIMINALS IN THE WHITE HOUSE THINK IT DOESN’T MATTER. THE DEMAGE WILL STAY WITH THE USA UNTIL THESE WAR CRIMINALS FACE ACCOUNTABILITY. WAKE UP AMERICA!
“doobee doo bee doooo..â€
December 13th, 2007 at 2:06 pmWOW YOU ARE SOOOOO CLEVER! R U RELETED TO BUSH SOME HOW?
“doobee doo bee doooo..â€
December 13th, 2007 at 2:07 pmWHAT A CLEVER ARGUMENT…
BUSH WILL BE SAYING “doobee doo bee doooo..†WHEN HE GETS HIS TRIAL!
December 13th, 2007 at 2:08 pmCapitols get you nowhere. Catch your breathe. I am glad though that you empathize though. I know it is armageddon, i mean bush is causing global warming, making the world hate us, causing job loss, killing the economy and stuff. At least I can still play XBOX Live and watch MTV while the country burns.
December 13th, 2007 at 2:16 pmStop writing letters and just call an open and public hearing and get all of their behinds under oath and ask the questions. We need some action now. This administration is getting away with torture and murder and if you count Halliburton/KBR, rape. By the way, I thought I saw something awhile ago that said that Hayden would be resigning from the service when he got the CIA job. Why is he still wearing a uniform?
December 13th, 2007 at 3:29 pmWell, it’s nice to know that the government is studying videos to improve its technique, even if it is torture.
December 13th, 2007 at 6:12 pmI wonder where the torture tapes of John Walker Lindh (American Taliban) went?
December 14th, 2007 at 2:20 pm