In September 2006, a US military C-17 cargo plane arrived at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and deposited 14 new prisoners. The men had previously been held in CIA “black site” prisons around the world, where many were tortured outside the protections of US law.
One of them was Ammar al-Baluchi, one of the five men facing a military tribunal at Gitmo for allegedly aiding the 9/11 hijackers. Prior to arriving at the island prison, Baluchi was subject to isolation, forced shavings, beatings, dousings with ice water, stress positions including being shackled to a ceiling, and food denial. In one particularly disturbing incident, trainee interrogators formed a line and repeatedly slammed his head against a wall for practice in a technique known as “walling,” leaving him with brain damage, according to a CIA report declassified in 2022.
