The torture files

CIA agents have broken ranks to reveal the 'cruel and inhuman' interrogation techniques they are ordered to use at secret prisons around the world, including freezing and near-drowning.
By Raymond Whitaker

Published: 04 December 2005

Amid a growing row in the US over torture, a list of "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by CIA agents in secret prisons - including near-drowning, freezing, sleep deprivation, shaking and slapping - has been leaked. In at least one case, a prisoner has died.

The techniques have been authorised for use at CIA "black sites" abroad, at which top terror suspects are held. Last week the US-based organisation Human Rights Watch said "ghost detainees" were held at two military bases, in Poland and Romania. Similar sites in half a dozen other countries, including Afghanistan, Thailand and the Indian Ocean base of Diego Garcia, leased from Britain, are now said to have been closed.