James Elmer Mitchell

James Elmer Mitchell (* 1952 ) alias Grayson Swigert is an American psychologist and former member of the United States Air Force .

Shortly after his retirement, he experienced the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and offered his services. Together with his business partner John Bruce Jessen , he signed a contract with the CIA in 2002 to develop a controversial interrogation program using torture measures on captured terror suspects. The techniques developed from the SERE training , which include sleep deprivation , waterboarding, and sham executions , were rated as torture by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence . The company of Mitchell and Jessen received 81 million US dollars , to President Obama , the program stopped.

In 2017, the civil rights organization ACLU filed a lawsuit against Jessen for mistreating terror suspects in secret CIA prisons. A federal court in Washington state ruled that the trial should start in September 2017. However, the litigation was resolved in August 2017.

Web links

• Torture at the CIA. The Victory of the Terrorists , FAZ, December 15, 2014
• Interview James Mitchell , Der Spiegel 51/2014, p. 85
• Video: 'We Had to Do Our Duty': Raw Video of Sharyl Attkisson's Interview With the Man Who Waterboarded the 9/11 Mastermind

Individual evidence

1. ↑ VICE News Exclusive: The Architect of the CIA's Enhanced Interrogation Program on YouTube
2. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung of December 12, 2014: Torture program of the CIA: water, light and country music
3. ↑ US court deals with CIA interrogation: first trial on torture methods. Two psychologists are charged in Washington. They are said to have developed methods of interrogating suspects after the 9/11 terrorist attack. In: taz.de. Retrieved August 10, 2017 . 
4. ↑ https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/17/544183178/psychologists-behind-cia-enhanced-interrogation-program-settle-detainees-lawsuit