The US president has disclosed the controversial CIA interrogation techniques of the Bush administration, including the threat of stinging insects, simulated drowning and depriving prisoners of sleep for up to 180 hours
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The US government released four memos written by the Justice Department in 2002 and 2005 to provide legal cover for methods that have been widely criticised as torture and which the new president has already disowned.
They exposed in graphic detail how 28 al-Qaeda suspects were questioned at CIA secret prisons, revealing the use of forced nudity, facial and abdominal slaps and the use of confined space and "stress positions".
They considered locking suspects in a box with an insect which they claimed was a stinging insect.
The documents were released in response to a writ by the American Civil Liberties Union. It was the first time official details of such techniques had been released.
In a statement, Obama said the tactics adopted by the previous administration in the "war on terror" in the wake of the September 11 attacks on America "undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer". He, however, ruled that the agents who carried out the interrogations would not be prosecuted, as they had acted within the controversial guidelines.
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