Ten Questions: #2

When the United States appeared before the U.N. to defend its human rights record, State Department legal advisor Harold Koh assured the world that the U.S. had “thoroughly investigated” alleged abuses of detainees in U.S. custody, and that “appropriate corrective action has been taken.” Koh also asserted that the Justice Department’s initial investigation into torture was actively looking into allegations of abuse by the CIA and other civilian agencies.

Drawing largely from material that has been covered in thetorturereport.com, we have come up with 10 follow-up questions for the U.S. about its compliance with domestic and international prohibitions against torture.

In Farhi Saeed Bin Mohammed’s habeas proceedings, Judge Gladys Kessler disallowed evidence she concluded had been “obtained by torture,” including statements by Binyam Mohammed, who she found had been abused in Pakistan at the direction of the United States and who was then tortured in Morocco and the CIA’s “Dark Prison” in Afghanistan. This month, the government of the United Kingdom reached a settlement agreement that includes substantial financial compensation to Binyam Mohammed for its own complicity in his U.S.-orchestrated torture. Is the treatment of Mohammed the subject of any past or current U.S. investigation? Who has been prosecuted or disciplined in connection with his torture?