Bagram’s ‘King of Torture’ says, “I opened up Abu Ghraib.” He was also sometimes called ‘Monster.’ Damien Corsetti, in charge of interrogation operations, gives a first-person testimony of torture. In simple parlance, his job was to torture some detainees in those CIA secret prisons.

Bagram is a US military base in Afghanistan that is long suspected of being a CIA secret prison. As for Abu Ghraib, various pictures have leaked into public information, graphically showing that what went on in that US prison in Iraq was not ‘normal procedure.’

As part of his job, Corsetti interviewed hundreds of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also participated in 8 sessions of secret interrogation of senior Al Qaeda officials. After nearly six months as an interrogator at Bagram in Afghanistan and in Iraq, Corsetti was tried in a military court. He was accused, among other things, of using torture and sexual humiliation of prisoners in their charge. After only half an hour of deliberation, the military court declared him innocent.

But Corsetti did tell stories of first-hand experience. Some of these stories are, in fact, worse than the reports that have reached US President Barack Obama.

Corsetti took hundreds of photos of the naked body of a detainee who had bruises and cuts all over his body. It was also common to put a water-soaked hood on a prisoner and put him under a lamp. The feeling is akin to asphyxiation. The practice of waterboarding (simulated drowning) is confirmed. Sensory deprivation was done by plugging a prisoner’s ears with headphones, covering his eyes with sunglasses, and hanging him to the ceiling by the wrists. In this position, a person can become insane within a few hours.

Al Qaeda detainees spent weeks naked, hung from the ceiling – defecating, urinating, and vomiting right on the spot. They were unchained only when moved to interrogation sessions which usually consisted of beatings, simulated drowning, and some other more sophisticated techniques such as the use of light that temporarily blinds.

Via Washington Square News Online