CIA used harsh questioning methods on Osama aide: report

NEW YORK: CIA interrogators stripped naked and played earsplitting music to Abu Zubaydah, the first henchman of Osama bin Laden captured by US after the September 11 attacks there five years ago, according to a media report.

Zubaydah who was seriously wounded during his capture early in 2002 was initially questioned in a safe-house in Thailand, by FBI agents who used standard interview methods, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

However the interrogation was later taken over by CIA operatives, who came armed with a classified directive signed by Bush on September 17, 2001, which authorised them to capture, detain and interrogate terrorism suspects, providing foundation for a secret-prison system abroad, the report said.

The new CIA team decided to use aggressive techniques to make Zubaydah reveal more of what he knew, and placed him in a cell without a bunk or blankets sometimes with air-conditioning adjusted so that Zubaydah seemed to turn blue, the report quoted one official as saying.

At other times, the interrogators piped in deafening blasts of music by groups like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the paper said.

US President George W. Bush in his speech last Wednesday mentioned Zubaydah's case and said he had never authorised torture, but argued that methods used by the Central Intelligence Agency in its interrogations had helped uncover other Al-Qaeda plots.

FBI agents on the scene angrily protested the CIA 's aggressive approach, arguing that persuasion rather than coercion had succeeded, report said.

However, CIA interrogation team leaders were convinced that tougher tactics were warranted and said that the methods were authorised by senior White House lawyers.

The Times cited interviews with several law enforcement and intelligence officials and said that the rift created between the FBI and the CIA due to Zubaydah's interrogation was yet to be healed.