SEATTLE — Lawyers for the federal government want to prevent CIA officers from testifying in a federal lawsuit filed against two psychologists who were hired to develop harsh interrogation methods.
The U.S. Justice Department filed a motion this week saying the officers’ testimony and the release of certain documents would violate the CIA Act and the state secrets privilege. That privilege allows the government to refuse to release information if it would harm national security.
The documents were requested by lawyers representing psychologists Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of three men who contend they were tortured using techniques designed by the psychologists.
Mitchell and Jessen ran a Spokane-based company that received $81 million from the CIA to develop methods to extract information from captives. Former President Barack Obama ended their contract in 2009.
Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud and the estate of Gul Rahman sued the psychologists in 2015. They are seeking unspecified damages.
Salim and Ben Soud both underwent waterboarding, daily beatings and sleep deprivation while inside CIA “black sites,” according to the lawsuit. Salim, a Tanzanian, and Ben Soud, a Libyan, were later released after officials determined they posed no threat.
Rahman, an Afghan, was taken from his home in Pakistan in 2002 to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan. He died of hypothermia several weeks later after being shackled to a floor in near freezing conditions.
The secret documents pertain to the CIA’s relationship with Jessen and Mitchell. Their lawyers have until March 22 to respond to the government’s decision to evoke the state secrets privilege.
The government said it has released thousands of pages of documents already, including CIA Inspector General reports about the program and the death of Rahman; cables between CIA officers at overseas detention facilities and CIA headquarters regarding the detention and interrogation of Rahman and Abu Zubaydah.
“Collectively, the documents publicly disclose an extraordinary and unprecedented amount of information about the operation of CIA’s program,” the government said. “The majority of these documents was produced with partial redactions and collectively contained thousands of discrete redactions to privileged information.”
The government’s interest in protecting national security outweighs the psychologists’ need for the information and disclosing the material would “chill free discussion among CIA officers regarding important counterterrorism and national security matters,” the motion said.
A message left with Brian Paszamant, lawyer for the psychologists, seeking comment on the government’s position was not immediately returned.
