Psychologists, Architects of CIA Experimental Torture Program

‘Two CIA psychologists, who were architects of the CIA’s torture program, have resorted to defense arguments once used by accused Nazi war criminals in order to claim they should not be held liable for torture.
James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were contracted by the CIA to develop, implement, and personally administer the agency’s experimental torture program against detainees in the War on Terrorism.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued Mitchell and Jessen on behalf of three men, who were tortured. The case alleges Mitchell and Jessen engaged in crimes that include water torture, forcing prisoners into boxes, and chaining prisoners in painful stress positions to walls.
Ahead of oral argument in Spokane, Washington, on July 28, defense lawyers for Mitchell and Jessen invoked [PDF] the cases of Karl Rasche, a banker who “facilitated large loans to a fund at the personal disposal of Heinrich Himmler,” the head of the S.S., and Joachim Drosihn, who was a gassing technician for the firm that manufactured the poison gas, Zyklon B, used to exterminate Jewish people in concentration camps.’
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