Torture

A polygamist who tortured, starved, imprisoned and beat his wives and children for decades was sentenced to seven life terms in prison Friday by a judge who said the man's "reign of terror" warranted the harshest punishment available. Mansa Musa Muhummed, 55, spoke before sentencing and denied ever mistreating his three wives and 19 children. "I never tortured anyone," he told Riverside County Superior Court Judge F. Paul Dickerson III. "I don't know where that came from."

The CIA used an arsenal of severe interrogation techniques on imprisoned Al Qaeda suspects for nearly seven years without seeking a rigorous assessment of whether the methods were effective or necessary, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The failure to conduct a comprehensive examination occurred despite calls to do so as early as 2003.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused the Bush administration and the CIA of misleading Congress about waterboarding prisoners, escalating a political fight with Republicans over her knowledge of the treatment of detainees. Separately Thursday, the CIA rejected a request from former Vice President Dick Cheney to declassify memos that Cheney has said show that the agency's severe interrogation methods were crucial to getting information from detainees that helped disrupt terrorism plots.

Canada's Foreign Ministry has put the United States and Israel on a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured, and it classifies some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture, according to a document that is part of a course for diplomats. Both listed nations deny they allow torture in their jails. The document mentions the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where one Canadian man, Omar Khadr, is among the inmates. Under "definition of torture," the document lists U.S. interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding.

Britain should no longer rely on U.S. assurances that it does not torture terrorism suspects, an influential House of Commons committee said. London had taken those assurances at face value but after the CIA acknowledged "waterboarding" three detainees, Britain should change its stance, the Foreign Affairs Committee said in its annual report on human rights. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in April that he thought the technique, which simulates drowning, amounted to torture.

The release of internal Bush administration interrogation memos this week answered long-standing questions about the CIA's techniques for getting prisoners to talk, but left unsettled a debate in Washington over whether those methods worked. The White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee are in the early stages of inquiries designed to address that issue, which nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks remains one of the most divisive in the intelligence community.

The conclusion in recently released Justice Department memos that CIA interrogation techniques would not cause prolonged mental harm is disputed by some doctors and psychologists, who say that the mental damage incurred from the practices is significant and undeniable. An August 2002 memo outlined 10 interrogation techniques used on top Al Qaeda suspects, including waterboarding, stress positions and -- for one prisoner with a known fear of insects -- cramped confinement with a bug.

Congressional leaders were briefed repeatedly on the CIA's use of severe interrogation methods on Al Qaeda suspects, according to new information released by the Obama administration Thursday that appears to contradict the assertions of House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Hector Febres was the man who knew too much. And, like a character in a spy novel damned with an excess of secrets, Febres met an untimely and grisly end: He was poisoned last month in his cell. That is the conclusion of Argentine officials investigating the death of the former coast guard officer, who was awaiting a verdict on charges of torture. The case arose from Febres' service under a military dictatorship decades earlier at the country's most notorious clandestine detention center.

Senate Democrats assailed Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey on Wednesday for refusing to offer an opinion on the legality of waterboarding, an interrogation method that many consider a form of illegal torture. In often sharp exchanges, the lawmakers accused Mukasey of trying to protect the Bush administration, with one comparing him to a corporate lawyer trying to cover up the misdeeds of his client.