NEW YORK and WASHINGTON - August 24 - The attached documents were released today through FOIA litigation by Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law seeking disclosure of information concerning "disappeared" detainees, including "ghost" and unregistered prisoners.  The original FOIA requests were filed with several U.S. government agencies including the Departments of Justice and Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency.  

Said Center for Constitutional Rights Attorney Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, "These are the documents Dick Cheney was so excited to see declassified, but they don't make the case for torture, they only show that the CIA is able to tailor documents to justify its actions after the fact. The descent into torture has made the world a darker and more dangerous place for everyone."

Said Tom Parker, Amnesty International USA Policy Director for (counter) terrorism and human rights, "Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Vice President Cheney's track record, the two CIA memos released today are hardly the slam dunk we had been led to expect.  There is little or no supporting evidence in either memo to give substance to the specific claims about impending attacks made by Khaled Shaik Mohammed in highly coercive circumstances."

These documents are available here.

• "Khalid Shaykh Muhammad: Preeminent Source On Al-Qa'ida" July 13, 2004, "Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War Against Al-Qa'ida" June 3, 2005

AIUSA, CCR, and NYU CHRJG filed FOIA requests with several U.S. government agencies, including the CIA, DOD, DOS, DOJ, and DHS beginning in 2004.

To see the prior filings and the documents previously released through this litigation, click here.

For more information or copies of legal filings in the case and released documents, please contact jnessel@ccrjustice.org, opgenhaffen@juris.law.nyu.edu, or ssingh@aiusa.org,.

For more information about the organizations involved, please see their websites: www.ccrjustice.org, www.chrgj.org and www.amnestyusa.org.