Afghanistan

Friday, Dec 14, 2007 16:55 PST

Architecture of detention

Renderings of cells where a prisoner was held as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program.

Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, a Yemeni man, was first detained on the suspicion of terrorist ties when he traveled to Jordan in the fall of 2003. In Jordan, he says now, he was beaten. He also alleges that Jordanian authorities threatened to assault and rape his wife and mother, and that this threat prompted him to confess to everything the Jordanians alleged. At this point, he says, he was transferred to the custody of the CIA and moved to a prison in Afghanistan. Now, as part of a lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing accused of facilitating secret CIA rendition flights, Bashmilah has provided the most detailed description of the interior of a CIA black site to date.

Provided below are four images, rendered by architectural software, based on Bashmilah's own drawings. Bashmilah's entire declaration, including what are at times graphic descriptions of what he says was done to him in Jordan and Afghanistan, is available for downloading here.

bogus image to trigger ed note formatting. -Nico

Exhibit I: Rendering of Bashmilah's first cell in Afghanistan
Primary Sources