tv Fault Lines Al Jazeera March 22, 2016 6:00pm-6:31pm EDT
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>> in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. we did a whole lot of things at a were right, buthat were rightd some folks. >> it's been more than a year since america admitted to torturing people. we're trying to interview one of them. omar abaluci is a high value prisoner in guantanamo. he can be communicate with the government through a high be screening process. we have
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answers to the questions we wrote to him. james, we're just outside. james connell, has represented baluci since 2008. much of what he knows is classified. >> i'm not allowed to talk about black sites, existence of black sites. >> can we talk about the prison? >> i can neither confirm or deny that there's a dark prison. >> some details of the cia's torture were revealed, including the faims of the people involved but the -- names of the people involved but the world has heard little about them. >> that is his handwriting? >> yes, the first day they shaved his head and they hit his head number russ times. he wrote, i passed out.
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>> that treatment was called walling, more than a dozen techniques given legal approval aft 9/11. but connell says that and other methods used on belluci left permanent damage. >> things that have led to the deaths of innocent people. can you understand why there might not be a great deal of sympathy for interrogation techniques like this? >> torture doesn't have anything to do with sympathy and it's bigger than any one individual or any group of individuals. torture has to do with how a society chooses to organize itself. if another future president chooses to use torture again they already have an infrastructure built. >> with torture emerging as a u.s. election issue we're trying to understand what's at stake by finding the men who went through it. these letters were as close to bellucci as we could get but there were others out there who
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received similar treatment, many not even charged with a crime. >> there was a coordinated campaign to silence the torture be victims. they never had a handled in this process. -- had a hand in this process. >> according to the senate's investigation, the cia's torture program involved 119 men from almost 20 different countries. the reasons for their detention are varied. some are through al qaeda, others labeled as terrorists by u.s. allies in the region. nearly a quarter were just wrongfully detained. at least 39 of the men were subjected to the very worst treatment. the cia called it enhanced interrogation. we're in istanbul to meet two of them. mohammed al
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sharia and be khalid ef khalidal sharif. >> in 2004, the u.s. state department designated l ampfg as a terrorist group but khalid and mohammed were detained a year before. when the cia came or t they were living in paki with their families. this was just before you were detained? you look so young mohammed.
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more than half of the cia detainees are thought to have spent time in what mohammed and khalid call the dark prison. the cia called it detention site cobalt. it was hard to believe that this place not only existed but was purpose-built by the world's premier intelligencegency. when the cia inspecten sent an investigator to the site, they found one person who had been chained to the wall so
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far as they knew, for subpoena days. the paperwork reads like an ice alaition film. isolation film. the chief of interrogation said cobalt was the closest thing to a dungeon he had ever seen. despite their treatments the u.s. never charged mohammed or khalid with a crime. the experience, they say, still haunts them in flash backs and nightmares.
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doctors and psychologist he monitored interrogations, pushing detainees to their physical and breaking points without killing them. that sometimes, things went wrong. thank you. bye-bye. okay so we're on, that was dr. tbvmentaraz bahir. he was detaind by the cia in 2002 in a huge raid that happened here in islamabad. he rarely speaks to the mediaai. pakistan has often been a refuge for the groups engaged next door in afghanistan. after 9/11 some of those people became cia targets. >> hi. >> hi how are you? >> very well. >> it's on this street? >> it is. >> we'll follow you. >> thank you. >> hey
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how's it going. sebastian. >> dr. bahir was part of an islamic organization. hasn't ever been on u.s. soil but members of its offshoots have. >> over 200 people, police and intelligence guys and the americans. >> americans? >> yes yes. >> as well? >> yes yes. it was 2:00 midnight. >> bahir was handcuffed barefooted and taken away. along with his friend who was a bodyguard for the group's leader. that was the last time bahir saw gol alive. they were be be taken to the detention site and gol warvetion ol was beaten.
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in 200 2002 he was left chainedo his cell. in the morning go l r ahman was found dead, hypothermia was likely the cause. >> a letter from his daughter, my dear father i'm waiting for your coming. gol raol rahman was the only detainee known to have died in the detention. >> he has five daughters. >> has never spoken on camera.
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they live in a refugee camp. it is hard for journalists to go there but bahir has offered to take us there. as a tribal elder he says he can guarantee our safety. but he wants us to keep a low profile. >> there are judges asking people, you're not going to inform the people but gist to wait in case something happens here. >> so there's a couple of checkpoints leading into the camp and a bit of concern that we might be stopped. dr. bahir is calling ahead and letting his guys know we're on the way. bahir is worried about attracting attention. at several points we're told to hide the camera.
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eventually, we pass through last pakistani checkpoint. from here on in, we're on our own. so all of this area is under -- >> it's under our command. >> yes. >> this is actually the camp. >> it is a huge camp actually. this is bahir. >> and the arms -- >> they are own people. thee are here for your security. >> it is a short drive to the rahman family home. that's the family's house? >> yes. >> gol's brother habib took over the care of his brother's house when he disappeared. >> thank you, thank you. so this is gol's house and his wife and mother still live here and his four daughters, we're just trying to work out if we
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can speak to them on camera. eventually we're invited to come in with the camera. gol has been dead for more than a decade now but this seems like a house still in mourning. for gol's mother one of the most painful things is that her son didn't get a proper burial. she says the americans never returned his body. in fact, it turns out the family went for years without knowing anything at all. despite relatives continually approaching authorities.
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the pairns had not only de-- the americans had not only detained gol, he died in their custody. simply stating that they weren't holding him, communications. >> they advised no person of this fame is currently being held. and this was in 2004 when they got this letter. >> yes. >> when did he this actually learn of gol's death? >> here. >> the family says nobody from the cia has ever contacted them about gol's death. habib only learned how his brother died from news reports. he's kept the details hidden from their mother. he said it would break her heart if she knew.
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>> we couldn't find anything in the report about gol rahman's body but it's likely he was buried close to the facility where he died. we know that was detention site cobalt. and based on our interviews with detainees, we believe dark prison and cobalt are the same. so many of these are redacted it is hard to know where the exact
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site of the prison was. but from the exact accounts of the detain ease, we know countryx will take us there. >> this is kandahar, afghanistan, we managed to contact two men who said they were also in the dark prison. we are hoping they can confirm its location. they were detained in exactly the same time that gol rahman was hmandied in custody. >> be nazar is one of 26 men the senate investigation found were wrongfully detained. sebastian, nice to meet you. >> yet though he didn't meet the be criteria for detention.
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their stories echoed those of others we had spoke to about the dark prison but they had new details. can you give us any information about exactly where the dark prison was located, anywhere at all? >> some people say that is the place this one here is where people were held. do you think the prison was that kind of size? are there any details you can remember?
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>> shawali khan's description is matched others. known as an old brick factory. said he can take us there. >> there is an airport there? >> exactly. now we'll make a turn. >> to the left? >> to the left. >> it's no longer a cia black site but the area is still used by afghan intelligence. >> it is still a secret place, they don't want he anyone inside. >> what happens if we're found? >> we would be definitely arrested. >> it is impossible to confirm the exact location. but kai says most afghans believe what detainees refer to as the black prison was once here.
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>> the first tower is the security guard. >> that's the perimeter of the base? >> yes. >> from satellite maps it looks like the original factory building is gone. a new collection of buildings, the white ones you see in the distance. >> that over there? that's the exact spot? >> the exact spot. >> hmm . >> it's eerie to be here . when other men arrived here in hoods and shackles. if you were driving around here on any given day it's like none of this ever happened.
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okay so it's obviously a highly secure location and i think one of the guards probably saw us so we should probably move. but to see the place where we finally understand the dark prison was, is a weird feeling. the cia declined to give us an interview or answer specific questions we sent them. in fact, the agency wouldn't even confirm the dark prison ever existed. so this happened more than a decade ago, to a small group of people, some considered enemies of the u.s. why should ordinary americans care about this?
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>> it's a new day of mourning in a major metropolis. tonight, thoughts echoing from the center of belgium to virtually every city and town around the globe. explosions tearing through the airport and a subway station in brussels. a ruthless attack targeting ordinary people going about their day, just four days after the lone surviving
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