Obama approves new US interrogation team

WASHINGTON- U.S. President Barack Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects, The Washington Post reported Monday while the New York Times reported the U.S. Justice Department' recommendation to reopen a dozen prisoner abuse cases.
Citing unnamed senior administration officials, the newspaper said the decision was part of a broader effort to revamp U.S. policy on detention and interrogation.
Obama signed off on the unit, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) late last week, the report said.
It will be made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies and housed at the FBI, the paper noted.
The group will be overseen by the National Security Council, which means shifting the center of gravity away from the CIA and giving the White House direct oversight, The Post said.
Obama moved to overhaul interrogation and detention guidelines soon after taking office, including the creation of a task force on interrogation and transfer policies, the report said.
The US Justice Department recommends
In the meantime, the U.S. Justice Department has also recommended reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, which could expose CIA employees and contractors to prosecution for their treatment of terrorism suspects, The New York Times said on Monday.
The recommendation, reversing the Bush administration, came from the Justice Department's ethics office and has been presented to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
The department is due to disclose later on Monday details of prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the CIA's inspector general but have never been released, according to the Times report, which cited an unnamed person officially briefed on matter.
When the CIA first referred its inspector general's findings, it decided that none of the cases merited prosecution.
Holder reconsiders
But when Holder took office and saw the allegations included deaths of people in custody and other cases of physical or mental torment, he reconsidered, the newspaper said.
"With the release of the details on Monday and the formal advice that at least some cases be reopened, it now seems all but certain that the appointment of a prosecutor or other concrete steps will follow, posing significant new problems for the CIA," the Times said.
The recommendation to review the cases centers mainly on allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In some examples of abuse that have just been publicized, the CIA report describes how its officers carried out mock executions and threatened at least one prisoner with a gun and a power drill -- possible violations of a federal torture statute.
The Times quoted a CIA spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, as saying that the Justice Department recommendation to open the closed cases had not been sent to the intelligence agency.
"Decisions on whether or not to pursue action in court were made after careful consideration by career prosecutors at the Justice Department. The CIA itself brought these matters -- facts and allegations alike -- to the department's attention," he was quoted as saying.
"There has never been any public explanation of why the Justice Department under President George W. Bush decided not to bring charges in nearly two dozen abuse cases known to be referred to a team of federal prosecutors ... and in some instances not even details of the cases have been made public," the Times said.