WASHINGTON — Newly released documents show the FBI interviewed a naked, chained terror suspect back in 2002 as the bureau struggled with the CIA over how to treat high- value prisoners.
Details of the interrogation were contained in documents released late Friday as part of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International and Judicial Watch.
As the CIA began to use harsh interrogation techniques against terror suspects, the FBI became wary of the legality of the methods, which ranged from forced nudity to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. As a result, FBI agents were ordered not to participate in such harsh interrogations.
Yet sometime in late 2002, an FBI agent interviewed accused 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh at a CIA site. The agent later said he got valuable information out of Binalshibh before the CIA shut down the questioning.
People are also reading…
According to one document, FBI officials told investigators when they arrived at the unidentified CIA site that "the detainees were manacled to the ceiling and subjected to blaring music around the clock."
The FBI agents worked with the CIA in developing questions, but were denied direct access to Binalshibh for four or five days, according to a report on detainee interrogations by Glenn Fine, Justice Department inspector general.
The report says eventually one agent was allowed to speak to Binalshibh for about 45 minutes.
"Binalshibh was naked and chained to the floor," the report said. The FBI agent later said that "he obtained valuable actionable intelligence in a short time, but that the CIA quickly shut down the interview."
The report said FBI officials later had serious misgivings about their participation in the Binalshibh interrogation.
The incident "indicates that a 'bright line rule' against FBI participation or assistance to interrogations in which other investigators used non-FBI techniques was not fully established or followed" at the time of the interrogation, the report said.
