We're Appealing
A judge's ruling that the CIA's criminal cover-up in a prisoner's torture-murder must remain classified should not be allowed to stand
I’ve decided to appeal our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the CIA’s report on Manadel al-Jamadi’s death.
We will appeal Judge James Boasberg’s ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. I’ll post updates and court filings as they come.
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As readers of this site know, Jamadi was a suspect in the October 2003 bombing of the Red Cross offices in Baghdad that killed 12. He was captured in a nighttime raid by Navy SEALs on November 4, 2003. The SEALs handed him to the CIA, which took him to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison for interrogation. Within hours, he was dead.
The only people in the room when Jamadi died were a CIA polygraph examiner turned interrogator and his translator, yet the SEALs were the only ones held accountable. And let’s face it, the only reason the SEALs were prosecuted was because images of Jamadi’s ice-covered corpse surfaced in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal:
Our argument remains that the criminal misconduct alleged in the case—involuntary manslaughter, false statements, destruction, alteration, or falsification of federal records, and conspiracy to defraud the United States—should not be deemed classified.
The CIA is authorized to conduct foreign intelligence, not commit crimes against the United States. Judge Boasberg’s erroneous ruling that the CIA’s criminal cover-up in the torture death of a prisoner must remain classified should not be allowed to stand.
Even if true, the world-class humanitarian organization formerly known as the KGB never ever does anything like this.