A Guantanamo Bay interrogator responsible for implementing brutal methods at the prison allegedly used similar tactics to extract murder confessions from non-white citizens during his 30-year spell as a Chicago detective.
Richard Zuley is accused of shackling suspects to police precinct walls for hours on end, threatening to harm their families & pressurizing them into implicating themselves & others.
Apparently targeting minority Americans, the detective's brutal regime resulted in at least 1 wrongful conviction - & other cases being thrown into doubt following accusations of abuse.
The shocking details, uncovered in an investigation by the Guardian, further damage the reputation of a country still reeling from recent revelations of wartime torture by the CIA.
Zuley was a detective on Chicago's north side from 1977 to 2007 & allegedly spent years engaging in brutal interrogation tactics, which are said to have included threatening subjects with the death penalty if they failed to cooperate.
He was also accused of planting evidence in one high-profile murder case where there was pressure to gain a speedy conviction.
As a Navy reserve lieutenant, he also carried out work for the military, telling a Chicago court in the mid 1990s that he did counter-terrorism work for Naval intelligence while continuing his role as a detective.
He was recruited to the Guantanamo Bay operation in 2002 - with U.S. military commanders believing he was just the man they had been searching for - having spent 3 decades cleaning up the streets of Chicago.
He says he was sent to Cuba as the 'liaison officer for the European Command' & was assigned to the prison's intelligence collection task force.
The detective took charge of the interrogation of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, described in official government reports & a best-selling memoir as one of the most brutal ever conducted at the US prison.
Slahi was seen as a priority interrogation target upon arriving at the wartime jail in August 2002.
He was a veteran of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, & US officials suspected he would have information on al-Qaida’s recruitment of the 9/11 hijackers in Europe.
Stuart Couch, a former Marine lieutenant colonel & military commissions prosecutor, described Slahi's treatment as 'unconscionable'. He said: 'I've never seen anyone stoop to those levels,' Stuart Couch, ... said according to the Guardian.
'It's unconscionable, from a perspective of a criminal prosecution – or an interrogation, for that matter.'
Mark Fallon, deputy commander of the now-shuttered Criminal Investigative Task Force at Guantánamo, called Zuley’s interrogation of Slahi 'illegal, immoral & ineffective'.
While his methods at Guantanamo soon came to light, his shameful tactics, honed over years behind closed doors in Chicago police stations, have not received the same public scrutiny.
Several people in Illinois say they were wrongly convicted of crimes following coerced confessions extracted by Zuley & his teams.
An investigation into his methods & conviction records was launched following the 2013 state-attorney's decision to free an innocent man Zuley had helped send to prison for 23 years.
Lathieral Boyd, who was convicted of murder in 1990, has filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against him after spending half his life in prison.
On Tuesday, papers filed in federal court showed that the conviction-integrity unit of the Cook County state's attorney now wants to look at civilian complaints against Zuley relating to another wrongful-conviction case.
Another case highlighted by the Guardian includes that of Benita Johnson & Andre Griggs.
Griggs was a heroin addict & petty criminal who was accused of murder in 1994 after an informant claimed he boasted about it.
Griggs says he was handcuffed to a station wall for 'maybe 30 hours' - an ordeal he claims led him to sign a false confession.
Benita Johnson says she was also handcuffed to a precinct wall & implicated herself & former boyfriend Griggs after Zuley & his colleagues threatened to take away her children & seek the death penalty.
Describing her interrogation, Johnson said: 'Basically they just tortured me, mentally, & somewhat physically, with the cuffs, & screamed & hollered. I went through a lot.'
Zuley received praise from Chicago mayor Richard Daley for his successful interrogation of the 2 suspects.
Richard Zuley is accused of shackling suspects to police precinct walls for hours on end, threatening to harm their families & pressurizing them into implicating themselves & others.
Apparently targeting minority Americans, the detective's brutal regime resulted in at least 1 wrongful conviction - & other cases being thrown into doubt following accusations of abuse.
The shocking details, uncovered in an investigation by the Guardian, further damage the reputation of a country still reeling from recent revelations of wartime torture by the CIA.
Zuley was a detective on Chicago's north side from 1977 to 2007 & allegedly spent years engaging in brutal interrogation tactics, which are said to have included threatening subjects with the death penalty if they failed to cooperate.
He was also accused of planting evidence in one high-profile murder case where there was pressure to gain a speedy conviction.
As a Navy reserve lieutenant, he also carried out work for the military, telling a Chicago court in the mid 1990s that he did counter-terrorism work for Naval intelligence while continuing his role as a detective.
He was recruited to the Guantanamo Bay operation in 2002 - with U.S. military commanders believing he was just the man they had been searching for - having spent 3 decades cleaning up the streets of Chicago.
He says he was sent to Cuba as the 'liaison officer for the European Command' & was assigned to the prison's intelligence collection task force.
The detective took charge of the interrogation of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, described in official government reports & a best-selling memoir as one of the most brutal ever conducted at the US prison.
Slahi was seen as a priority interrogation target upon arriving at the wartime jail in August 2002.
He was a veteran of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, & US officials suspected he would have information on al-Qaida’s recruitment of the 9/11 hijackers in Europe.
Stuart Couch, a former Marine lieutenant colonel & military commissions prosecutor, described Slahi's treatment as 'unconscionable'. He said: 'I've never seen anyone stoop to those levels,' Stuart Couch, ... said according to the Guardian.
'It's unconscionable, from a perspective of a criminal prosecution – or an interrogation, for that matter.'
Mark Fallon, deputy commander of the now-shuttered Criminal Investigative Task Force at Guantánamo, called Zuley’s interrogation of Slahi 'illegal, immoral & ineffective'.
While his methods at Guantanamo soon came to light, his shameful tactics, honed over years behind closed doors in Chicago police stations, have not received the same public scrutiny.
Several people in Illinois say they were wrongly convicted of crimes following coerced confessions extracted by Zuley & his teams.
An investigation into his methods & conviction records was launched following the 2013 state-attorney's decision to free an innocent man Zuley had helped send to prison for 23 years.
Lathieral Boyd, who was convicted of murder in 1990, has filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against him after spending half his life in prison.
On Tuesday, papers filed in federal court showed that the conviction-integrity unit of the Cook County state's attorney now wants to look at civilian complaints against Zuley relating to another wrongful-conviction case.
Another case highlighted by the Guardian includes that of Benita Johnson & Andre Griggs.
Griggs was a heroin addict & petty criminal who was accused of murder in 1994 after an informant claimed he boasted about it.
Griggs says he was handcuffed to a station wall for 'maybe 30 hours' - an ordeal he claims led him to sign a false confession.
Benita Johnson says she was also handcuffed to a precinct wall & implicated herself & former boyfriend Griggs after Zuley & his colleagues threatened to take away her children & seek the death penalty.
Describing her interrogation, Johnson said: 'Basically they just tortured me, mentally, & somewhat physically, with the cuffs, & screamed & hollered. I went through a lot.'
Zuley received praise from Chicago mayor Richard Daley for his successful interrogation of the 2 suspects.
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