After September 11, 2001, U.S. officials authorized the cruel treatment and torture of prisoners held in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo, and the CIA's secret prisons overseas.

This database documents the U.S. government's official experiment with torture. At present, the database contains well over 100,000 pages of government documents obtained primarily through Freedom of Information Act litigation and requests filed by the ACLU, and through litigation of Salim v. Mitchell, a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of the survivors and the family of a dead victim of the CIA torture program. To learn more about the database, please read the About and Search Help pages. If you're a developer, you can also access this data through our API.

Search Result (7)

RelevanceDateRelease Date
Sept. 16, 2005 | CID | ACLU-RDI 2250
Criminal Investigation Command (CID) report into allegations of assault, cruelty and maltreatment of a detainee by guards at Abu Ghraib. Among the detainee's allegations, he stated that a US Army Sergeant hung him by his arms from the bars of a ...
Feb. 15, 2006
Investigative File (CID), Photograph
Donald J. Ryder, Thom Jones
Use of water, Other, Physical assault, General, Stress positions, Isolation, Environmental manipulation, Light or sound, Hooding/Goggling, Nudity, Other Humiliation, Sexual, Religious, Manipulation of interrogator’s identity, Other
Jan. 15, 2004 | DOA | ACLU-RDI 494
Commander's report of a 15-6 Investigation and Courts-Martial, dated December 2003. This document pertains to allegations that U.S. soldiers broke the jaw of an Iraqi high school boy. There is evidence that suggests the 311th MI personnel and/or ...
Mar. 23, 2005
Photograph, Interview (Statement), UCMJ (Court-Martial)
David Petraeus
Use of water, Water dousing, Physical assault, Face slap or insult slap, Walling, General, Threat, Assault/death, Sleep deprivation, Isolation, Environmental manipulation, Light or sound, Hooding/Goggling, Forced physical training
Dec. 28, 2003 | DOA | ACLU-RDI 495
Abu Malik Kenami was detained in Iraq on December 5, 2003. He was interrogated and then placed in to the general population at Abu Ghraib prison. From the 5th of December through the early morning of 9th of December Kenami was not obeying the ...
Mar. 23, 2005
Non-legal Memo, Investigative File (AR 15-6), Photograph, Interview (Statement)
Abu Malik Kenami
Isolation, Environmental manipulation, Hooding/Goggling, Forced physical training
| ACLU-RDI 413

This document is the Claim for Compensation; documents in support of the claim; and correspondence from the Army Claim Service concerning a claim by an Iraqi/Swedish citizen for compensation for his alleged torture and other mistreatment ...

Feb. 28, 2005
Non-legal Memo, Letter, Photograph
Antonio Taguba
Use of water, Physical assault, Face slap or insult slap, General, Threat, Assault/death, Use of electricity, Use of phobias, Sleep deprivation, Environmental manipulation, Light or sound, Temperature, Hooding/Goggling, Nudity, Other Humiliation, Sexual, Religious, Manipulation of interrogator’s identity
July 01, 2004 | CID | ACLU-RDI 13

On 1/18/04, a detainee gave a statement about abuse he had suffered at Abu Ghraib and also stated that he had witnessed a translator forcibly sodomizing a male juvenile detainee while a female U.S. soldier observed and took pictures. (This ...

Dec. 30, 2004
Investigative File (CID), Photograph
Charles A. Graner, Jr., Ivan L. Frederick, II, Megan M. Ambuhl, Javal Sean Davis, Sabrina D. Harman
Physical assault, Sexual, General, Stress positions, Dietary manipulation, Environmental manipulation, Hooding/Goggling, Nudity, Other Humiliation, Sexual
June 10, 2004 | CID | ACLU-RDI 14

Approximately 73-year-old Iraqi woman reported that she had been subjected to assault and sexual abuse, including being sodomized with a stick and touched in private areas; that she was forced to "swim" in water thrown on ...

Dec. 30, 2004
Investigative File (CID), Photograph
Jacqueline J. Scott, Nelson van Eck, Thom Jones
Use of water, Other, Physical assault, Sexual, General, Cramped confinement, Use of phobias, Isolation, Dietary manipulation, Environmental manipulation, Light or sound, Hooding/Goggling, Other Humiliation, Sexual
Dec. 19, 2003 | CID | ACLU-RDI 20

On November 14, 2003, a soldier provided a sworn statement saying that while he was deployed to Iraq, he "saw what I think were war crimes.... In my mind, my chain of command did nothing to stop these war crimes, and allowed them to ...

Dec. 30, 2004
Investigative File (CID), Photograph
Physical assault, General, Stress positions, Dietary manipulation, Environmental manipulation, Hooding/Goggling, Other