CIA report details 'brutal' post-9/11 interrogations

 

 The CIA carried out "brutal" interrogations of terror suspects in the years after the 9/11 attacks on the US, a US Senate report has said.

The summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report said the CIA misled Americans on the effectiveness of "enhanced interrogation". The interrogation was poorly managed and unreliable, the report said. President Obama has previously said that in his view the techniques amounted to torture.

The Senate committee's report runs to more than 6,000 pages, drawing on huge quantities of evidence, but it remains classified and only a 480-page summary is being released. Publication had been delayed amid disagreements in Washington over what should be made public.

President Barack Obama halted the CIA interrogation programme when he took office in 2009. Earlier this year he said that in his view the methods used to question al-Qaeda prisoners amounted to torture. During the presidency of George W Bush, the CIA operation against al-Qaeda - known internally as the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation - saw as many as 100 suspected terrorists held in "black sites" outside the US.

They were interrogated using methods such as water boarding, slapping, humiliation, exposure to cold and sleep deprivation.