Unredacted Church Report Documents (Previously Classified)

The ACLU has obtained thousands of unredacted documents regarding the military's internal investigations into charges of detainee abuse as a result of our ongoing FOIA litigation. The uncensored documents are from the Church Report and five separate CID investigations of deaths and abuse in Iraq , Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay .

The unredacted pages from the Church report were previously classified. Describing investigations of deaths at Bagram in 2002, the report refers to alleged behavior of military personnel as "clearly abusive, and clearly not in keeping with any approved interrogation policy or guidance." The report notes that "In both instances, the deaths followed interrogation sessions in which unauthorized techniques were allegedly employed, but in both cases, these sessions were followed by further alleged abusive behavior outside of the interrogation booth."

The ACLU also obtained reports of investigations into deaths that took place in Afganistan and Iraq – as well as Abu Ghraib abuses. Although several have been reported on already, this is the first time the military investigations have been released in full. They include:

• Investigation of two deaths at Bagram. Both detainees were determined to have been killed by pulmonary embolism caused as a result of standing chained in place, sleep depravation and dozens of beatings by guards and possibly interrogators. (Also reveals the use of torture at Gitmo and American-Afghani prisons in Kabul )
• Investigation into the homicide or involuntary manslaughter of detainee Dilar Dababa by U.S. forces in 2003 in Iraq .
• Investigation launched after allegations that an Iraqi prisoner was subjected to torture and abuse at "The Disco" (located in the Special Operations Force Compound in Mosul Airfield, Mosul , Iraq ). The abuse consisted of filling his jumpsuit with ice, then hosing him down and making him stand for long periods of time, sometimes in front of an air conditioner; forcing him to lay down and drink water until he gagged, vomited or choked, having his head banged against a hot steel plate while hooded and interrogated; being forced to do leg lifts with bags of ice placed on his ankles, and being kicked when he could not do more.
• Investigation of allegations of torture and abuse that took place in 2003 at Abu Ghraib.
• Investigation that established probable cause to believe that U.S. forces committed homicide in 2003 when they participated in the binding of detainee Abed Mowhoush in a sleeping bag during an interrogation, causing him to die of asphyxiation.

The Church Report documents are available at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/38710lgl20090211.html

The investigation documents, along with descriptions, are available at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/021109.html

More info on our FOIA litigation, including documents and press releases are at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/torturefoia.html