Photo: “Fatima”, was Imprisoned and Tortured in Sudan, 2015. 60 x 50 inches. © Andres Serrano, courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery.
Last August, the unthinkable occurred. Just as the very first civil case involving CIA torture was about to go to trial, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced a settlement in the lawsuit against two psychologists, James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen, who designed and implemented the agency’s brutal program.
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The ACLU brought the lawsuit on behalf of Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, and the family of Gul Rahman, who froze to death in a secret CIA prison. The three men were tortured and experimented on using methods developed by Mitchell and Jessen. Although the full terms of the settlement agreement are confidential, the outcome shows that those who engage in torture on behalf of the United States government can and will be held responsible.
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Mitchell and Jessen have a sordid history in government-sponsored torture. In 2005, they founded a company that the CIA contracted to run its entire torture program and were paid $81 million for their services over several years. The psychologists tortured prisoners themselves, trained CIA personnel in their methods, and supplied interrogators to the agency’s secret “black site” prisons.
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Until this historic win, every lawsuit against the CIA torture program had been dismissed at initial stages because lawyers for the government argued that letting the cases proceed would reveal state secrets. But not this time. Not only was the CIA forced to release secret records, but the doctors and high-ranking CIA officials Jose Rodriguez and John Rizzo had to testify about torture during depositions.
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