The CIA used torture on detainees – including sleep deprivation, simulated drowning, confinement with insects and playing deafening music for weeks, slowly driving detainees mad.
At least nine detainees officially died at the camp. Some suspects were kept for 20 years without formal charges. One Guantanamo survivor penned a book where he described his experiences, including after-torture hallucinations and memory loss.
Many Guantanamo detainees were not even tried in court. “The CIA was never interested in prosecution,” admits James Mitchell, a psychologist who helped develop ‘enhanced interrogation’ methods.
The CIA’s strategy was “hurting a person until they say what you want them to say, then hurting them more to find out if they’re lying,” adds Mitchell.