Trump's executive powers may block CIA torture suit
Source: International Business Times
10 MAR 2017 AT 07:49 ET
President Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly invoking executive powers to interfere in a lawsuit that aims to hold Americans accountable for their complicity in alleged torture. Dror Ladin, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union appearing on behalf of the plaintiffs, said Thursday the Trump administration is using state secrets privilege to block the testimony of several top CIA officials, including the new deputy director of the agency, Gina Haspel.
The state secret privilege is invoked to ask judges to keep selective information out of the court as it is argued that it may harm national security. Ladin said that the secret doctrine has been applied previously under the administrations of Barrack Obama and George W. Bush to deny justice to survivors of torture by shutting down their lawsuits.
“This case has shown that the claims of C.I.A. torture survivors are not too secret for our courts to handle. ... Whether or not the government’s new state secrets claims are upheld, there’s already more than enough evidence in the record for our clients to prove their case,” Ladin told the New York Times.
The three plaintiffs — Suleiman Abdullah Salim of Tanzania, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud of Libya and Gul Rahman (who was captured from Islamabad and later died as a result of hypothermia while in custody in Afghanistan) — were subjected to various forms of torture ranging from regular beatings, forced rectal feeding, waterboarding, sensory and sleep deprivation, shackling in painful stress positions and confinement in coffin-like boxes, to even mock executions, according to Vice News, ACLU reports and statements recorded in the case.
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/trumps-executive-powers-may-block-cia-torture-suit/