More than seven years ago, a suspected Afghan militant was brought to a dimly lit CIA compound northeast of the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. The CIA called it the "Salt Pit". Inmates knew it as the dark prison. Inside a chilly cell, the man was shackled and left half-naked. He was found dead, exposed to the cold, in the early hours of Nov. 20, 2002.
The Salt Pit death was the only fatality known to have occurred inside the secret prison network the CIA operated abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks. The death helped lead to a review that uncovered abuses in detention and interrogation procedures, and forced the agency to change those procedures.
The CIA's use of torture on suspected terrorists had been the subject of much debate long before it was ended in 2006. The extra-judicial prison network was closed down by the Obama administration last year.
The man who died in the Salt Prison was Gul Rahman, a suspected militant captured on Oct. 29, 2002. Little has emerged about the Afghan's death, which the Justice Department is investigating. The Associated Press has uncovered new information about his capture in Pakistan and his Afghan imprisonment.
The detailed account of the case was assembled from documents and interviews with both militants and officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and with more than two dozen current and former U.S. officials.
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