Laid Saidi

Laid Saidi is an Algerian who claims he was imprisoned, for several years, in a CIA black site in Afghanistan called "the salt pit".

Saidi was imprisoned near Khalid el-Masri during the five months el-Masri was imprisoned in the salt pit, in a prominent instance of mistaken identity.

Saidi for Al-Haramain Foundation, a Saudi charity that has been accused of ties to terrorism. He was expelled from Tanzania in May 2003, and transported to Afghanistan.

Saidi said that scars on his wrists were from being suspended from the ceiling by his hands. American officials assert that they stopped using this technique after it lead to the deaths of two Afghans, Habibullah and Dilawar in Bagram, in December 2002.

Main article: Bagram torture and prisoner abuse

Saidi described months of confusing interrogations, where his interrogators kept insisting that he had spoken cryptically of planes during a telephone conversation. When the tape the Americans had made of this conversation was finally played for him, Saidi described being surprised to realize all these questions were due to a simple misunderstanding, that could have easily been dealt with, without months of torture.