The Conclusion of Chapter 4, "A Ponzi Scheme of Torture"

Today we post the conclusion of “A Ponzi Scheme of Torture,” a chapter which pieces together the interconnected, serial tortures of Abu Zubaydah, Binyam Mohamed, and Jose Padilla.

In the first part of the chapter, “The Scheme,” we saw how the interrogations of these three men formed the entire basis of an alleged “dirty bomb” plot the Bush administration knew from the start was a far-fetched fiction—and how the administration resorted to torture in these interrogations not to thwart an impending attack but to produce false confessions and testimonies it would try to use against these three and others. We saw how, as always, the principle fruits of torture are bad information and more torture.

In the first installment of the Part 2, “The Story Unravels,” we followed Jose Padilla’s case as it made its way through the courts. Now, in the final installment of this shameful story, we take a similar look at the proceedings against Binyam Mohamed, who today is a free man in England, and end where we began this first full section of the Torture Report, with Abu Zubaydah, whose White House-orchestrated torture we chronicled in Chapter 2 and who remains in complete legal limbo in Guantánamo.

There have been several developments in the last two weeks relating to the ground we’ve covered in the report’s first four chapters, and I’ll cover them here in the Diary in the days ahead.

For now, though, I’d just like to encourage you to read this new section, and Chapter 4 in its entirety. It’s a story everyone should know.