and Americans wonder why we're hated by the civilized world
An Afghan prison stirs doubts on CIA
A man's death brings inquiry
By Dana Priest, Washington Post | March 6, 2005
WASHINGTON -- In November 2002, a new CIA case officer in charge of a secret prison just north of Kabul allegedly ordered guards to strip an uncooperative Afghan detainee, chain him to the concrete floor, and leave him there overnight without blankets, according to four US government officials who have been made aware of the case.
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The Afghan guards, paid by the CIA and working under CIA supervision in an abandoned warehouse code-named the Salt Pit, dragged their captive around on the concrete floor, bruising and scraping his skin, before putting him in his cell, two of the officials said on condition of anonymity.
As night fell, so did the temperature. And by morning, the Afghan man had frozen to death.
After a quick autopsy by a CIA medic -- ''hypothermia" was listed as the cause of death -- the guards buried the man, who was in his 20s, in an unmarked and unacknowledged cemetery used by Afghan forces, officials said. The captive's family has never been notified; his remains have never been returned for burial.
He is on no one's registry of captives, not even as a ''ghost detainee," the term for CIA captives held in military prisons but not registered on the books, they said.
''He just disappeared from the face of the earth," said a US government official with knowledge of the case.
The CIA case officer, meanwhile, has been promoted, two of the officials said, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the matter. The case is under investigation by the CIA inspector general's office.