Washington Post: US Knew of Torture in Afghan Jails

Washington continued to transfer detainees to facilities run by Afghanistan's intelligence service though officials from the US State Department, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US military had received multiple warnings about systematic torture at Afghan jails, The Washington Post reported Sunday in a new revelation.

One of the notorious detention centers, located near US military headquarters in Kabul, has come to be known as Department 124.The facility is run by the Afghan intelligence agency and contains up to 40 terrorism suspects.

So much torture occurs inside the center, one detainee told the United Nations, adding that the notorious place is also known as "People call it Hell."

With chilling detail, the United Nations recounted detainees' stories of interrogators hanging them by their hands for hours, beating them with metal pipes, shocking them with electricity until they passed out. Of the 28 detainees interviewed who had spent time at the facility, 26 told the U.N. they had been tortured, according to a report released in October 2011.

According to Afghan and Western officials familiar with the site, US Special Operations forces handed over detainees to Department 124, which was rebuilt in 2010 by American money and has been visited regularly by CIA officials.

Source: Washington Post, edited by moqawama.org