The Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, which is the principle air base of the US forces currently stationed in the country, has been identified as a site for a secret US detention facility by various human rights researchers and by the ex-detainees who were previously held in the prison known as the “Black Jail”.

As per the description given the former inmates, the black jail is comprised of windowless concrete jail cells that serve as solitary confinements and the only source of light is a bulb is switched on 24×7, which could be a tactic to deprive the inmate of all sense of time. The detainees were visited by officials twice a day for their interrogation sessions.

According to Hamidullah, a former inmate of the black jail,

“The black jail was the most dangerous and fearful place. They don’t let the I.C.R.C. officials or any other civilians see or communicate with the people they keep there. Because I did not know what time it was, I did not know when to pray.”

Many such detention facilities were opened during the initial phases of the War on Terror under the Bush administration in effort to give the military commanders and the intelligence agencies much needed room to maneuver and gather valuable information from those detained. After taking the Oval Office, President Barack Obama had given the orders to shut down the facilities run by the Central Intelligence Agency. However, the black jail could easily get exempted from this order as this facility is under the supervision of the U.S Special Operations Forces.

Recently, the US military spoke on the subject of the secret jails and affirmed the importance of such facilities as being the pivotal instruments of gathering valuable intelligence from the high value detainees being questioned there.

Via New York Times.