The first photo of a CIA black site inmate has been released in an unclassified document from a U.S. military court.
A photo of Ammar al-Baluchi, one of several men at Guantanamo Bay accused by the U.S. government of plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has been released in U.S. military court documents.
According to the Guardian, Baloch was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2003 and secretly taken to five CIA black sites between 2003 and 2006.
Baloch has been held at Guantanamo since being transferred to several black locations but has not yet been convicted of any crime.
The Guardian obtained photos of “war on terror” detainees from Baloch lawyers hours before the military tribunal documents were released.
The photo, in which Baloch appears to be extremely malnourished, is believed to be at a CIA black site in Bucharest, Romania, which the US government calls “Site 7” or “Black Detention Site.”
The Military Commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, published the photo of the Baloch on page 7 of the document on the Baloch Trial.
Revealed: First photos of War on Terror detainees on CIA black website https://t.co/nVdi2tCfyX
—The Guardian (@guardian) August 2, 2024
According to the New York Times:
For years, defense attorneys in the Guantanamo case have talked about censoring disturbing government photos of people held by the CIA at the Bush administration’s secret overseas prison known as Black Jail. But they were marked secret and the world was not allowed to see them. so far.
Lawyers in the September 11 case have released a CIA photo of inmate Ammar al-Baluchi showing him in an overseas prison around 2004 thin, malnourished naked body.
Lawyers said the photo, originally published by the Guardian, emerged through the classification review process of military commissions and the Guantanamo Bay War Tribunal in Cuba.
Image of a handcuffed naked man standing in an empty room looking into the camera.While photos of U.S. troops abusing prisoners after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have been leaked, including a 2004 photo from the Army-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, none have ever appeared on the CIA’s dark website . In fact, in 2005, the agency’s leadership destroyed interrogation tapes from a black site in Thailand to ensure they would not be seen.
Read the full unclassified content here: Military Commission Trial Judiciary
