http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-05/how-many-were-tortured-to-death/

Administration Homicides

by John Sifton

For five years as a researcher for Human Rights Watch and reporter, John Sifton helped investigate homicides resulting from the Bush administration's torture policy. His findings include:

• An estimated 100 detainees have died during interrogations, some who were clearly tortured to death.

• The Bush Justice Department failed to investigate and prosecute alleged murders even when the CIA inspector general referred a case.

• Sifton’s request for specific information on cases was rebuffed by the Bush Justice Department, though it was “familiar with the cases.”

• Attorney General Eric Holder must now decide whether to investigate and prosecute homicides, not just cases of torture.


 http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/14/human_rights_investigator_attorney_john_sifton

Democracy Now! May 14, 2009

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is John Sifton, private investigator and attorney based here in New York. His latest piece is in The Daily Beast. It’s called “The Bush Administration Homicides.”

Keep going with these examples. And then I want to ask you—well, you’re talking murder, then. And how should it be prosecuted?

JOHN SIFTON: Well, you have, to start, approximately a hundred deaths. The Army has already—the Army Criminal Investigation Command has already determined that a large number of those were homicides, which just means that the death wasn’t the result of natural causes. Then you have to determine whether those homicides were murder.

And the review by Human Rights First, which took place several years ago, showed that in many cases there was good evidence to show that murder had taken place, murder by torture. And yet, the military again and again has closed these investigations. They’ve just sort of petered out.

But there’s a huge amount of documents, tens of thousands of documents. And some of the photographs that are at issue now, with the Obama administration releasing photographs, are photographs that are evidentiary photographs in those investigations.

AMY GOODMAN: Wait. Let’s talk about that, because this is very significant. It’s only been framed as, well, this could incite people. Explain the turnaround, if you can, or what the significance of it is, by Obama saying he would release the photographs, because he cared about transparency, and now he’s saying he’s going to hold onto it. This is after visits, reportedly, from General Odierno and now the fired General McKiernan.

JOHN SIFTON: Well, the photographs are obviously very important, but they’re just one side of the coin. There are large amounts of CIA internal documents from the inspector general’s report that the CIA prepared about detainee abuse. There’s a lot of stuff there, a lot of material that Obama can consider releasing. The photographs, obviously, are very important. It’s good that we’re paying attention to them. But the real evidence that shows the way these techniques spread and the involvement of senior Bush administration officials, that’s not photographs. Those are memos. Those are CIA cables from black sites to Langley, notes from meetings between Langley and the White House, things like that.