Hettena v CIA
An appellate hearing may be the last chance to find out what happened to an Iraqi detainee who died in a CIA interrogation in 2003.
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I’m in Washington, DC, this week for what may be the final opportunity to find out what happened 22 years ago to an Iraqi detainee who died during a CIA interrogation.
Three appellate court judges heard arguments in the case of Hettena v CIA, a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit I filed to obtain the CIA’s Inspector General report into the facts of the gruesome homicide of Manadel al-Jamadi in Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.
For about an hour, the discussion in Courtroom 31 in the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse revolved around exemptions and segregability, concepts only a FOIA nerd could love.
As I sat in the marble-paneled courtroom, I found myself thinking about the unlikely friends…