BLACK SITES

Inside the CIA’s Romanian Prison

Where Gitmo detainees were first interrogated.

An Associated Press investigation exposes one of the CIA’s former secret prisons in Romania: the black site—which the CIA code-named “Bright Light”—was located in a government building just a couple blocks off a major boulevard in northern Bucharest. It had six prison cells in its basement, each with a clock and an arrow pointing toward Mecca; the cells were on springs to keep the detainees off balance at all times. For the first month, detainees were subjected to sleep deprivation, stress positions, and tough interrogations including slapping and dousing with water. Waterboarding, however, was apparently not practiced there. Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad passed through the prison, as did several other detainees who were transferred to Guantánamo Bay in 2006.