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Recently, the US has been trying to expose itself as the main champion and defender of human rights in the world while in fact this state is the biggest violator or supports the human rights violators in the world.As history shows, the United States was formed on the basis of human rights violations by a group of European colonialists. Never, as in the first years of the resettlement of the British into a country later named America, representatives of one or another nationality were not subjected to such ruthless genocide and destruction. The Indians were routed in the most ruthless way. Many died in unequal battles, others because of the dangerous diseases brought into the country by European emigrants, tens of thousands were able to starve to death after the loss of agricultural fields and pastures.According to historical documents, the policy of ethnic cleansing, carried out by the Americans, was accompanied by such measures as depriving the Indians of the ability to have offspring. Although this policy was not limited to Indians and it was conducted in relation to several thousand slaves, forcibly transferred from Africa to the United States and killed due to harsh living conditions and hard work.Some advocates of the current political system in the United States believe that the Indian genocide and the anti-human slavery system belong to the past and today minority representatives enjoy equal rights with white rights. However, the reality is that the social system in the US is still based on racial discrimination. For example, African Americans receive 70% of the wages of white people, and the level of poverty among them is much higher than among the latter. African Americans are less likely to receive higher education or health care. The unemployment rate among them is twice as large as among whites. Because of all this, young African Americans are more exposed to social conflicts than others.These problems exist in other countries of the world, but in the United States, claiming to protect human rights, several million people are deprived of equal rights because of the color of their skin.The terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, gave the US administration the opportunity under the pretext of combating terrorism to fully control the lives of citizens. George Bush, ignoring the Congressional laws, issued a decree on "wiretapping" 300 million telephone calls at a time when, by law, a warrant warrant was required for this. In addition, he allowed the intelligence services to view electronic communications of American citizens. They even found out what books people read in libraries. The White House chiefs motivated their actions by the fact that existing laws weaken the possibility of timely detaining suspected terrorists.There is no doubt that the purpose of espionage for its own population in the US was not to detain terrorists. Non-interference of the state in private life is one of the first principles of human rights, which in recent years is often violated in the United States.The CIA, the world's largest intelligence service, has long used the most brutal torture methods of inquiry, which are then used by Washington's allies. The September terrorist attacks only accelerated this process, and the torture methods of interrogation became common practice. The US leadership spoke in favor of changing the laws so that investigators could seek evidence without fear of prosecution by law.The method of artificial drowning has repeatedly applied in the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghurayb or the secret prisons of the CIA in Europe. In addition, according to the promulgated documents, the prisoners were dogged, kept in the cold or in the heat, sexually abused, electroshocked, stripped and deprived of sleep.The actions of the US administration in recent years indicate a twofold approach of Americans to human rights. Countries that do not follow the instructions of Washington and the West are immediately accused of violating human rights, but when it comes to US national security, they openly violate these rights. As former US Vice President Dick Cheney noted, "in security matters, you can enter the gray zone." He meant that all measures of influence, including torture and violation of human rights, are allowed in the fight against terrorism.Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in turn, in her visit to Europe in response to the protests, called for the amendment of human rights laws to authorize any methods of inquiry.By the way, the White House never waited for consultations or changes to the Geneva Conventions on human rights from the international community.As an example, a very "fresh" fact of 2018.The Senate approved the 61-year-old Gene Hespel as CIA chief. She became the first woman in this position. It seems that this is a significant achievement in the US gender policy. But there is one small thing that for 30 years of work experience in the intelligence services in the United States and abroad there were a few nuances. During the management of the secret prison in Thailand, under her supervision, prisoners were tortured. As reported by ProPublica, in the prison, which was directed by Gina Hespel, the "extended interrogation technique" was used against two suspects in connection with al-Qaeda. As a result of torture, one of them lost his eye. Later investigators concluded that he did not have valuable information, and three years later all evidence of the incident was destroyed - presumably, on the initiative of Hespel.During the investigation, journalists collected declassified records, testimony from former colleagues, FBI staff and a Thai prison prisoner, and the Senate Intelligence Comittee's report demonstrates Hespel's active involvement in torture. However, videotapes on which the candidate for the head of the CIA could be photographed were destroyed, and her transcripts are not indicated. Anyway, the charges are brought.What is the result? Perhaps Gina was brought to trial?You are mistaken. With such abilities she is worthy of the post of director of the CIA!You probably watched the movie "True Lies", where the question of the heroine:- "Did you ever kill anyone?"The main character in the performance of Arnold Schwarzenegger-Harry answers:"Yes, but they were all bad."Perhaps the same principle appointed heads of government services and government. The more people's blood is on their hands, the more likely they are to reach the top ...Over the past half century, the United States under various pretexts has undermined democracy and human rights around the world. Once the occasion for the Americans was the struggle against communism. Whenever there was a danger of communism in the Third World, Washington allowed dictators to commit the most terrible crimes. In Iran, they argued that the nationalization of the oil industry strengthens the position of the Communists. In Indonesia, the struggle of the pro-Western government of this country with the so-called communists left half a million dead. Dozens of bloody coups have also been committed in Africa and Latin America. However, at the same time, the Americans sat at the negotiating table with the same Communists about the division of the world. The collapse of the eastern bloc also did not persuade the Americans to reconsider their policy of double standards with regard to human rights. This time they came up with an opponent called "radical Islam" and terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, allowing their allies in the Middle East and Central Asia to violate human rights. A large number of published reports indicate that some released Guantanamo prison detainees who were sent to countries with allied relations with the US were subjected to the most barbarous tortures, up to the point that some prisoners preferred to stay in the scandalous Guantanamo prison. Meanwhile, the US is constantly a standard-bearer of the spread and protection of human rights in the world.Among the many cases of human rights violations by the US, the scandal in the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghurayb takes a special place. In April 2003, when the Saddam monument was overthrown in Baghdad, the Iraqis rejoiced and rejoiced that the nightmare of Abu Ghuraybah had ended, but this prison, like other facilities in Iraq, was under American control and in a short time the Baathist investigators gave way to American military investigators. Of course, for some time there was no information from Abu Ghurayb about what was happening in this prison under the guise of spreading democracy. But later on the Internet appeared footage, which stunned and shocked the whole world. In these pictures, American investigators made memorable photos near the pyramid of naked prisoners. American serviceman section of a young Arab and put a collar on him. In another picture, a police dog is set against an Iraqi prisoner, on the third, a black bag is put on the head of an Iraqi prisoner, and he is tied to an electric chair. At first it seemed that the pictures were fake, but it soon became known that these inhuman forms of treatment of prisoners were part of the course of training American soldiers during military service. The bitterness of this terrible crime was that, trying to justify these actions, the American command stated that the soldiers were having fun.The military crimes of the Americans are not limited to the Abu Ghurayb prison. In Afghanistan and Iraq, there have been recorded instances of American troops committing crimes against humanity. For example, in one judicial dossier, several Americans were named, who shot civilians from machine guns and grenade launchers for fun and sporting excitement. American soldiers concluded a bet on each of them, which of them could reach a passerby at a certain distance. They also, like the memory of this accursed war, cut off the fingers or toes of their victims. Such nasty acts in Iraq were committed, in the main, by members of the "private army" of the United States. The security company Blackwater is accused of the uncaused murder of at least 200 Iraqis. In another case, an American Apache helicopter shot a group of civilians in Iraq, including two journalists. The US Army claimed that the helicopter pilot had confused the canvas camera case with the weapon. Such mistakes for the army, which calls itself the most powerful in the world, have become a common thing, since so far many wedding ceremonies or civilian vehicle columns in Afghanistan have been bombed by missile bombs from American drones.Guantanamo Bay is another example of a violation of human rights by the US. After the military occupation of Afghanistan in 2001, the American army seized a number of people as al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. At that time, the Americans decided to transport the detainees outside Afghanistan to keep them away from the theater of operations. The first choice was for top-secret prisons in the US, but in that case, the White House would have to comply with the minimum principles of justice in the United States, while the then American government intended to detain the most inhumane tortures in order to extract the necessary information from them. On this basis, they sent the prisoners to a place outside the jurisdiction of the US judicial system. Thus, a special military prison was established on the basis of the US Navy in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. In the early days, more than 800 prisoners of Afghan, Arab, European and even Canadian origin were brought there. A few pictures, published about the transfer of prisoners, showed only the prisoners in orange uniform, who were tied to each other by chains and shackles.The death penalty, racial discrimination, ill-treatment of prisoners, the Guantánamo prison where prisoners are held without open trial and investigation. This is an incomplete list of issues that interested the members of the UN Human Rights Council during the consideration of the periodic review report of the United States. The United States was reminded that most of the recommendations given by the United States after reviewing the first report in 2010 remained on paper.The list of claims to the US in the field of human rights turned out to be quite long. However, the American delegation was ready to criticize. Says US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council Keith Harper:"We believe that it is useful for any people to look at themselves in the mirror. Each country has problems, and serious preparation for the periodic review report in the Human Rights Council allows it to move forward in their resolution. "In Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), there is a Guantanamo Bay prison, owned by the United States, - a camp for persons accused by the authorities of various crimes. Most prisoners are held without formal charges. They are sanctioned by the government and the US President of torture, including in the form of imitation of drowning, sleep deprivation, exposure to loud music. It is also considered possible to execute prisoners who gave confessions under torture.Former CIA and NSA programmer Edward Snowden published information about a number of special programs used by US intelligence agencies in early 2013, through which you can read the messages of any person. Thus, the US services managed to violate Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to life, to liberty and security of person" - and to set up the whole world against himself.Earlier, the founder of the scandalous WikiLeaks website, Julian Assange, published documents related to the same human rights violations. And there were a lot of them: information about the inadequate maintenance of prisoners in Guantanamo prison, secret documents about the war in Afghanistan, corruption in Kenya, data on thousands of unregistered deaths of civilians in Iraq.At the same time, US statesmen with a fervor claim that Russia is constantly carrying out cyber attacks on state structures of the country. At the same time, a number of services were formed for spying on and listening to everyone around. Scandals with the audition of even the leaders of the countries - allies of the US is not considered shameful. Everything is explained by the highest principles of security and the struggle against the insidious Russians.China has published its own report on human rights violations in the United States. The Chinese report says that the US reports "are full of distortions and accusations about the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions, including China. However, the United States turns a blind eye to its own horrendous human rights situation, and practically does not mention it. ""The United States uses human rights as a" political tool to defame other states and advance its own strategic interests, "the report says. Illustrating the appalling human rights situation in the US, the authors of the Chinese report state that The United States does not have the reputation necessary to act as the world's "defender of human rights"."However, year after year, the US publishes its" Human Rights Reports in different countries "to blame other countries for human rights violations," the report said. According to the authors of the document, this policy completely exposes the hypocrisy and double standards of the United States on the issue of human rights, as well as their malicious plan to achieve hegemony under the pretext of protecting human rights.The report calls on the US government to "take concrete measures to verify, improve and remedy its human rights activities, and abandon its dominant habit of using the human rights issue to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries."The report shows that in the United States, the government seriously violates civil and political rights.- The inviolability of the private life of citizens is seriously undermined. Between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010, more than 6,600 air passengers were searched using electronic devices, almost half of them were US citizens. The report mentions the data published by the American Civil Liberties Union in September 2010.- US law enforcement often use beatings and torture to obtain confessions, and "unfair condemnation occurs quite often."- Speaking for freedom of speech on the Internet, the US itself introduces rather strict restrictions in cyberspace. They apply double standards to Internet freedom, demanding unlimited "Internet freedom" in other countries, while simultaneously imposing strict restrictions on their own territory. This has become an important diplomatic instrument of pressure and an attempt to achieve superiority over other countries.- While the United States considers itself to be the "light of democracy", their democracy is mainly based on money. According to media reports, in 2010, candidates for Congress and the US Senate broke all records to raise funds for election campaigns in midterm elections. As of October 24, 2010, they collected more than $ 1.5 billion. The final cost of the midterm elections held in November 2010 was $ 3.98 billion, which made them the most expensive in US history. Recently, the cost of elections has only increased.Already today the US has become the leader in the number of violent crimes:"Every year, every fifth person in America becomes a victim of crime. The United States is leading the number of violent crimes among all countries of the world, and the lives, property and personal safety of their citizens are not well protected.- The United States is also in the first place in the world in terms of the number of private firearms and the number of crimes related to these weapons. The report says that the number of owners of firearms is rampant.The United States is widely known for its international human rights violations, the report said.The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan under the leadership of the United States led to huge losses among civilians.The WikiLeaks website reveals that between March 2003 and the end of 2009, up to 285,000 people were killed in Iraq. Of the 109,000 people killed in the Iraq war, 63% were civilians. "The US military operations in Afghanistan and other regions caused the local population to suffer huge losses," the report says.The report mentions the infamous "assassin team" formed in Afghanistan by five soldiers of their 5th Brigade Combat Team, armed with the Stryker Infantry Battalion, the 2nd Infantry Division of the US Army. The team committed at least three murders, during which they killed random peaceful Afghans, and then dismembered the corpses, taking human bones as souvenirs.In addition, in 2009, US-led NATO forces caused death and injury to 535 Afghan civilians. Of these, 113 were shot and killed, which is 43% more than in 2008. These data are quoted in the report with reference to the McClatchy Newspapers publishing group.Failure to comply with international obligationsAccording to the report, the United States refused to sign several key international human rights conventions and did not fulfill its international obligations.To date, the United States has not ratified either the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, nor the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the report says.In addition, the country has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which has been ratified in 96 countries. A total of 193 countries have signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but the United States remains one of the very few countries that have not ratified it, the report says.The first report submitted by the US government to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in the framework of the Universal Periodic Review (August 20, 2010) and dedicated to the internal human rights situation received a record number of recommendations (228) on improving the human rights situation from 60 state delegations.During the discussion of the United States, some delegations noted that America's commitment to protecting human rights was far from satisfactory and called on the United States to reconcile itself to the unpleasant truth about human rights violations and to take concrete actions to cope with existing problems in this area, the report says.Reports of various international human rights organizations clearly demonstrate the facts of violations of human rights and certain social groups. America is the country with the largest number of prisoners per capita (more than 20% or 2 million people of the global number of criminals are held in American prisons). Victims of the criminal system most often become the most vulnerable segments of the population: immigrants, children, racial minorities. Apparently the social welfare of these people does not fit in any way with the plans of the local bourgeoisie.The problem of racial harassment is one of the most acute in the United States. This is because the black population of the United States, who was recently granted formally equal rights with the "white", has not been able to adapt to life in modern society. They can not get decent education, work, social guarantees, because of the government's unwillingness to create a "healthy" society. We all know that in the US there are "ghettos" (areas with a predominance of "color" population), in which the standard of living is very low, which leads to the prosperity of crime there. As a result, of course, mainly ethnic minority representatives are being prosecuted.After their stay in prison, these people, especially, can not become a full-fledged part of the "democratic society", since the so-called "rehabilitation program for prisoners" can not effectively perform its functions, due to the huge flow of former criminals. Most of them (about 50%) were held on charges related to the violation of order and the spread of drugs, and the fault of many has not been proven. As a result, they received a real term due to "refusal to cooperate with the investigation." Now this man is not only not satisfied with his social position, but he accuses the government of all mortal sins, because he understands that he has no "human rights" in fact.And about "making pledges" - this is a separate story, which visually demonstrates to us the social bias of the authorities. Failure to pay the collateral introduces additional difficulties to the life of insolvent citizens, for which it only emphasizes that rich rights are much more orderly than the poor.Another problem of American "democracy" is the methods of imprisonment in US prisons, which are characterized by cruelty and arbitrariness on the part of the authorities. They represent the principle of "supermaximal" security - prisoners are distributed over single cells and are completely isolated, both from the outside world and from each Under Construction such conditions, people, including minors, are kept for years. Single isolation is one of the means of torture of US special services against those who pose a threat to national security. The list of torture also includes: drowning, persecution by dogs, use of extreme temperatures.From all this we can conclude that raspiarennaya American "democracy" is a simple bourgeois chatter and an empty myth aimed at justifying its own interests. Democracy in the US certainly exists, but only for the rich and very rich, which is an irrefutable proof of the crisis of statehood. And, the current actions against the murder of the black population by the police are another proof of this.A fairly graphic example of the lawlessness of the US authorities is arrests on far-fetched proposals even by citizens of foreign countries outside the jurisdiction of the United States.On March 6, 2008, Russian businessman Viktor Bout was arrested at the Bangkok Hotel (Thailand). The arrest was carried out with the participation of the special forces of the Thai police and representatives of the United States, including the staff of the anti-drug agency.Included in the structure of the US federal government, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a statement in Washington saying that Bout "has been accused of conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to a foreign terrorist organization based in Colombia." A Russian citizen still languishes in the dungeons of the US prisons.US intelligence agencies carried out the kidnapping of a Russian citizen of the Rostov pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was arrested in Liberia for alleged cocaine smuggling, and extradited along with alleged accomplices in the United States. Now he is in one of the prisons of the United States.Now Washington police detained a Russian citizen Maria Butina on suspicion of working as a foreign agent in favor of Russia. According to the Justice Ministry, she was charged with conspiring to act on the territory of the United States as an agent of the Russian Federation without prior notification to the Prosecutor General of the country.On this charge, you can now arrest every second Russian who is in the US for business or study.What will happen in the world if Russia will arrest American citizens on its territory and even abroad? Stick them to labels of spies and judge according to the strictness of the Law. Do not you understand that by these actions you open a Pandora's box. Do you really think that there is no power on Earth that can stand up for itself, rather than submissively bow to the "strongest"?I think that this will all end pretty bad for the whole world. One can not treat entire countries as inferior and not worthy of attention. It ends badly.I think that I answered the question about the moral "superiority" of the United States towards Russia, which can teach or even teach us in violation of democracy and human rights violations, when in the US these rights are trampled at every turn. You can say that this is not true, you do not know examples of these violations, but I will say you probably do not live in a ghetto, you are not an African American or even a Latino. Your ancestors are not Mexicans and you are not from an Indian village. In any country there are disadvantaged and disadvantaged groups of the population, but this does not entitle them to condemn them and boast of their noble principles, which work only towards the elect ...

The dark prisoners: Inside the CIA's torture programmeDespite US admissions that it tortured people after 9/11, little has been heard from the victims themselves."There is a proverb that a human being is stronger than a stone and more tender than a flower." - Habib Rahman, brother of Gul Rahman (Prisoner #24) who died in CIA custodyJust days after the 9/11 attacks, US President George W Bush authorised the CIA to begin covertly detaining people it suspected of being terrorists. Within the year, Department of Justice lawyers provided the first set of memos that would draw a legal line between so-called "enhanced interrogation" and torture. Up to that point, secret imprisonment was considered a violation of human rights.While I was starving, near freezing, naked and cut off from my family, my torturers would keep me awake for days.... From all the beatings, I learned that sleep meant pain.Ammar al-Baluchi, victim of the CIA torture programmeCIA black sites were set up all over the world, and suspected terrorists were rendered, detained and subjected to brutal abuses: sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, auditory overload, rectal rehydration, waterboarding and stress positions, as well as other forms of treatment designed to humiliate and degrade.The torture years continued for nearly a decade until, in 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order putting an end to the practice.In December 2014, the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) released what is now known as the "Torture Report", the 500-page executive summary of a roughly 6,700-page still-classified investigation. The abridged version was declassified despite fierce objections from the CIA, some Republicans and even the White House.It revealed that the programme was not only more brutal than the CIA had let on for years, but also ineffective - suggesting that the agency had wilfully misrepresented its tactics' usefulness to policymakers and the public. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, a Democratic senator from California who has supported the agency in the past, concluded that: "Under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured."READ MORE: Covering the CIA torture reportTo this day, only one individual has been jailed in connection with the CIA's torture programme: John Kiriakou, a former analyst and case officer-turned-whistleblower, who was the first person to confirm the agency's use of waterboarding in 2007.No survivor of the CIAs torture programme has had a day in a US court: claims have been repeatedly shut down by invoking state secrecy and immunity doctrines.In the first year of his presidency, Obama said: "Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."Still, survivors continue to seek accountability. ACLU lawyers are pursuing a case on behalf of three former CIA detainees, including Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, the family of Gul Rahman, and Suleiman Abdullah Salim. The case targets James Mitchell and John "Bruce" Jessen, the two psychologists contracted by the CIA to design and implement the agency's torture programme.While officials may prefer to close the book on that dark period in America's history, for the CIA's victims, the effects of their experiences live on in their bodies and minds. Within the Torture Report was an official list of 119 names belonging to men who had been detained and interrogated in secret prisons.The list is a window into the breadth of the programme. According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Rendition Project, which has compiled some of the most extensive reporting on the individual cases to date, would-be CIA prisoners were picked up from more than 20 countries, with nearly 60 nations identified as being complicit in the rendition and/or detention of these prisoners.Although detained as suspected terrorists, many of these men were never charged with crimes by the US. Many were picked up on the basis of thin or faulty intelligence; a few entered the programme because of mistaken identity. According to the SSCI review, 26 individuals did not meet the CIA's own standards for detention.A photo taken from a book assembled to commemorate the life of Gul Rahman, the only man known to have died in the CIA's torture programme [Courtesy Dr. Ghairat Baheer]Inside the Dark PrisonAlthough the locations of the CIA's prisons have never been officially confirmed, more than half of the 119 CIA detainees are thought to have passed through a black site believed to be near the international airport in the Afghan capital Kabul.It is widely believed to be the same prison that the Senate Investigation code-named "Detention Site Cobalt". The men who had been detained there knew it as the Dark Prison. According to the Senate investigation, one CIA official described the place as a "dungeon" and considered the prison itself an "enhanced interrogation technique".Fault Lines sent several questions regarding "Cobalt" to the CIA. One, on behalf of a family whose loved one died in custody there more than 14 years ago, was simply, "Where is his body?"In response a CIA spokesperson referred Fault Lines to documents on the CIA website, and sent back a statement that read, in part, "...the programme had shortcomings and the Agency made mistakes. CIA has owned up to these mistakes, learned from them, and taken numerous corrective actions over the years."The remains of the detainee were not mentioned.The layout of the Dark Prison, as former CIA detainee Mohamed Ahmed al-Shoreiya Ben Soud recalls it [Courtesy of Mohamed Ahmed al-Shoreiya Ben Soud]Are the torture years over?Despite the disclosures of the Torture Report, the individuals who were detained have not been approached by the Senate for their testimony.Today it happened to us; tomorrow it'll happen to someone else... Maybe in the future the American government will consider some segment of the population as threats and it will torture them as well.Mohamed Ahmed al-Shoreiya Ben Soud, former Dark Prison detaineeIn the course of making The Dark Prison, Fault Lines spoke with 14 prisoners in almost a dozen countries, some of whom had never spoken to the media before - but all of whom had spent time in "Cobalt".Many were too traumatised, angry or afraid to speak on record, others were in countries Fault Lines could not access for security reasons.Throughout this year's presidential campaign, candidates such as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have repeatedly called for techniques used during the US's torture years to be reintroduced in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, which is also known as ISIS.In response to the attacks in Brussels, Belgium, Trump said on the Today show, "If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding."Mohamed Ahmed al-Shoreiya Ben Soud, one of the men who spoke to Fault Lines about his experience in the CIA's programme, doesn't think the torture years are officially over."Today it happened to us; tomorrow it'll happen to someone else," he said. "Maybe in the future the American government will consider some segment of the population as threats and it will torture them as well."Ben Soud's story, as well as those of four other men, appear below - told, where possible, in their own words.MEET THE DARK PRISONERSPrisoner #52: Mohamed Ahmed al-Shoreiya Ben SoudMohamed Ahmed al-Shoreiya Ben Soud was detained in April 2003 [Singeli Agnew / Al Jazeera]Mohamed Ahmed al-Shoreiya Ben Soud's detention began in April 2003. He was captured outside the house he lived in with his wife and daughter in Peshawar. Khalid al-Sharif, who was staying with Ben Soud, was detained with him.Both men were native Libyans and were members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a movement formed in the 1990s in external opposition to the authoritarian rule of Muammar Gaddafi. The US State Department labelled LIFG a terrorist group in 2004.Ben Soud was in US custody for roughly 16 months after which he was released to the Libyans. He remained in jail in Libya for nearly seven years and was released in 2011.In a series of interviews with Fault Lines, Ben Soud described what it was like in the Dark Prison - and also shared drawings of his memories of how the facility was laid out.Fault Lines: How did you learn whose custody you were in?Mohamed Ahmed al-Shoreiya Ben Soud: In my first interrogation shortly after having entered, I was brought in naked and stood there in the interrogation room. They removed the bag over my head. I found a female interrogator with the American intelligence saying to me in the harshest tone as she banged on the table, "You are now a prisoner of the United States of America. You now have no rights since the events of 9/11."Can you remember what the prison looked like?The prison was basically a warehouse with a high ceiling. It was divided into two sections. One section consisted of interrogation rooms. Another section contained cells where prisoners were held.Could you see into any of the other cells?No, you couldn't see anything. There was an opening that was about 10cm by 30cm below the door. That's it. It was only for ventilation. There were metal bars through the opening. Perhaps they thought you could escape through the 10cm-by-30cm opening.The entire building was dark. Inside the room it was dark. There was no light. When they would enter the cell, they would use a headlamp or a flashlight. I would not have known what the room looked like but for the flashlights they used. I would see what's right next to me. Otherwise you learn by feeling. You figure out what you're eating through feeling it. This is rice.The music was miserable and filled the place. It was rock music, ugly and horrific.What do you remember about the cell?There was nothing in it. Just a small mattress. Everything else was a regular floor. What stood out to me was the bathroom that we would use, which was a bucket. We would remove the lid, and the smell would fill the room.The area around the cells would be filled with mice. When they would give you the food, you would see a small amount of it left. The rest was eaten by the mice.Mohamed Ahmed al-Shoreiya Ben Soud's drawing of the cell he lived in for a year in the Dark Prison [Courtesy of Mohamed Ahmed al-Shoreiya Ben Soud]You can still picture it exactly?Yes, exactly. I lived in this cell for an entire year. I memorised its details and still remember them now. Its measurements, how it looks, the writings I wrote on the wall. These details are carved in my mind.This ring, which was hung up from the ceiling, we were hung from it, in different positions. We suffered from it a lot. We would be hung for long periods and we would be in tiring and exhausting positions. The prisoner would sleep while his hands and feet hung from the ring. The guard would pass by here and use his flashlight to see that you were awake and not asleep.The first five months that we spent in this room, we did not take a shower. We did not touch water unless we were being tortured. Our hair was not cut. Our fingernails looked scary. Five months without any care or attention. After five months, on September 3, 2003, they allowed us to cut our nails, to use the bathroom, to wash ourselves, once a week. They started to cut our hair. This was a very difficult time. Everything, every section of this room, tells a story of great suffering.The water that we used to use to drink, wash and use for the bathroom was two small bottles. Each bottle was 1.5 litres. Three litres a day you would drink, wash your face, that was it. They would not give us clean water, but a metal jug filled with dirty water.Can you tell us more about how they used the ring?My left leg was broken. When they would put us in this stress position, they would tie my two hands to my right leg. Right now I have to lean on my left side so that I can have some relief. Even now, if I sit on my left leg, even for a little while, I immediately don't have any feeling in it. Even if I walk for a little bit, I still feel pain.They could do anything - hit, kill... anything. Because there were no human rights, no humanity, no principles, no ethics.... No one was holding them accountable or supervising them.Mohamed Ahmed al-Shoreiya Ben Soud, former Dark Prison detaineeWe've heard about a smaller room where prisoners were occasionally taken.Did you see it?It was a cell. Or rather, it was a grave.There was a rod that hung from the highest ceiling. It was all covered in blood. They would hang the prisoner's hands from the ceiling, with this rod. So the prisoner's toes would barely touch the floor.I was hung from this place for a day and a half, and my leg was broken. The blood went down to my leg so it got swollen. It was frightening. For a day and a half, I did not drink water or use the bathroom or pray. I was naked.The entire time we were in this place, the most dangerous thing I was thinking of was that they had no red lines.They could do anything - hit, kill, they could do anything. Because there were no human rights, no humanity, no principles, no ethics.This is what was scary about this place. There were no limits, there were no standards as far as how these people would act. No one was holding them accountable or supervising them.What do you think they were trying to achieve with this treatment?I think that the lone intention was to break our spirits as prisoners, to break our will so we would reach a point of personal deterioration and lose hope for everything.One of the sleep-deprivation tactics used as part of the CIA's enhanced interrogation programme involved suspending prisoners by their hands from a metal bar near the ceiling of a cell so that their feet barely touched the ground [Courtesy of Mohamed Ahmed al Shoreiya Ben Soud]Prisoner #37: Ghairat BaheerGhairat Baheer was arrested in his home in Islamabad in October 2002 [Singeli Agnew/ Al Jazeera]In the 1980s, Dr Ghairat Baheer was a political ally of the United States. He was a senior member of Hizb-e-Islami, an armed, counter-insurgent group within the Afghan mujahideen that drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan and was supported by the CIA.In the decade following the Soviet withdrawal, Baheer was part of official channels between Afghanistan and other countries, including Australia and Pakistan.Things changed after the 9/11 attacks. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hizb-e-Islami and Baheer's father-in-law, opposed the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.Baheer brought Fault Lines to a quiet neighbourhood of Islamabad where he was arrested in his home on October 29, 2002. Walking through the deserted residence brought back many difficult memories for the 53-year-old doctor and politician."It was two in the morning. They were pressing that bell at my house. My eldest daughter was suffering from hepatitis A and had a pretty severe fever, and I was awake sitting with her. I came out and opened the gate. I think more than 30 people entered. They had guns and pistols. They said: "We're going to search the house."Interrogation was another torture.... If you're not cooperating, they will put you in a long box, like a coffin, and they will close the door on you. There is no oxygen. It's completely closed. Stones are put on your top. You feel as if you're dying.Ghairat Baheer, former Dark Prison detaineeThey tied my hands and ankles, put goggles [over my eyes], mufflers over my ears and put a hood on me. I could not breathe. There was a chain from my ankles to my waist. It was very difficult to walk. They were punching me and pushing me backwards and forwards.My wife was in the house and my five daughters and two sons. The eldest daughter at the time was in grade 11, and the youngest was a six-month-old baby. I didn't say goodbye, there was no opportunity given.This was the last time I saw my family for six years.I was a peaceful man. I was a politician. During the jihad period, everyone participated in armed struggle against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Even in that time, I remained on the political side of the Afghan struggle. After 9/11, I was vocal in my opposition to America's policy towards Afghanistan and the region.Americans believe in freedom of speech. I was not doing anything related to any kind of militancy. There was no link between me and the Taliban. There was no link between me and al-Qaeda.I was shifted to Kabul. The facility as a whole was dark. The Americans working there were using torches in order to see. It had three loudspeakers - they were on 24 hours, with a very huge voice, Michael Jackson or some other stuff. You could not hear anything else. They would not let you sleep. Once in a month they used to change the cassette. So in this period of two or three or four minutes, we could feel some kind of calmness.At one stage I almost reached a breaking point. I was in that Dark Prison. I had a very high fever, I had a very severe stomach problem. I was starving to death, almost. I was beaten very badly. The room was very cold. An American guard was passing, and I told him I'm sick, please take me to the doctor. He hit me with his torch. I became unconscious. The waste bucket also dropped on the floor, so the room was very messy and smelly. Then they took me to the interrogation.Interrogation was another torture. You are locked to the wall. They will not let you sit down. Two people will be punching you. If you're not cooperating, they will put you in a long box, like a coffin, and they will close the door on you. There is no oxygen. It's completely closed. Stones are put on your top. You feel as if you're dying.I was not expecting that I would survive or that one day I would be a normal human being living with my family.My release was extraordinary. I was brought from prison to the palace, and I was the guest of Afghan President [Hamid] Karzai for at least one week. I then met my family members and one of my daughters who is now finally at medical college. Her name is Tiaba.I was asking, "Where's Tiaba?" She was standing in front of me. She says, "I'm Tiaba." I said, "Is that you? You have grown up."Dr Ghairat Baheer with Fault Lines correspondent Sebastian Walker outside Baheer's home in Islamabad where he was arrested in 2002 [Singeli Agnew / Al Jazeera]Prisoner #24: Gul RahmanGul Rahman was arrested in 2002 [Al Jazeera]Ghairat Baheer was not taken into custody alone. When security forces came to arrest him in October 2002, his driver, two security guards and a former employee named Gul Rahman were also taken into custody. Rahman was in Islamabad for an appointment with an asthma specialist and had planned to spend the night with the Baheer family before returning home.Rahman would become Prisoner #24 in the CIA's programme. His interrogation included "rough takedown" - where interrogators bum-rushed a prisoner in his cell, stripped him naked, placed a hood over his head and assaulted him - and "cold water dousing".He is the only CIA prisoner acknowledged by the agency as having died as a result of his treatment.The SSCI report cites an internal CIA review of Rahman's death, which determined he most likely died of hypothermia. He was "short-chained" to a wall, with his hands and feet bound closely together, and left half naked in the Dark Prison where temperatures dipped to near freezing.Rahman died only weeks after he was detained, but it would be years before his family would learn of his death. That was thanks to Kathy Gannon and Adam Goldman's reporting for the Associated Press in 2010. Rahman's relatives said they weren't able to believe the story until the Senate report confirmed it.The Rahman family lives in the Shamshato refugee camp on the outskirts of Peshawar. The camp is usually off-limits to journalists, but Fault Lines was able to enter it and speak to members of the Rahman family with the help of Baheer.Habib Rahman, Gul Rahman's brother:Habib Rahman, Gul Rahman's brother, wants to know what led to his sibling's arrest [Singeli Agnew/ Al Jazeera]"If I were to tell you the memories I have about my brother, they would never end. I wish you had the time to stay with me for a night and I could understand your language, so that I could tell you what kind of a personality he had.I never saw or heard anything from him that made me disappointed in him. He was nice to everyone. He was very special and very caring.After he was arrested, I made a lot of effort to find a channel to contact the Americans. I would spend two or three months at a time in Kabul, but no one would listen to me. The Americans denied to us that they were holding him. We thought he was with the Pakistanis, and that he was alive.They should have told us the truth. They should have given us his body.Now we are asking: Why was it kept a secret? What had Gul Rahman done? The important thing for us is that the persons involved in this crime receive punishment. I wish that they are dealt with in accordance to the law, that justice is done."Hajira, Gul Rahman's eldest daughter:"Americans themselves always speak out on human rights. If they want to implement them, then this is the time. Why did these criminals kill my father in this manner? Why did they put him in such a cold place? What proof did they have for what they did to my father?Even now they should give us his body. They should find it. Those who did this injustice to my father know where it is. They should give us his body so we can bury it according to Islamic culture."Obaidullah, Gul Rahman's nephew:"I read the [Senate] report. It was a bit of a shock to think how the human mind could arrange this kind of interrogation. I was crying because of my uncle. That was the first time that we understood the Americans had used these methods to intimidate him.The psychologist - I think he's responsible for all these things that were done. He is the one who was leading the interrogation process. He was a psychologist, not an official CIA man. He was controlling, ordering and doing all those cruelty techniques to my uncle.If I had a chance to speak with the Americans, I would ask them, are you human? I don't think that a human would do these things, this cruelty.My uncle died in 20 days. Our family waited 14 years with no information."Rahman's mother asked that the body of her deceased son be delivered to his family [Singeli Agnew / Al Jazeera]Morwary, Gul Rahman's mother:"Since that year and until now, my body is on fire. How can one forget her child? Our grief is the same every night. It has never changed.What crime did my son commit? If he had committed a crime, you could have detained him for 10, 20 years or maybe a lifetime. But at least tell us what his crime was. There was no trial for him. He has died, and we don't even have his body.I only say this: Did he commit such a big crime that you hid his bones from us?Prisoner #55: Ammar al-BaluchiAmmar al-Baluchi is the nephew of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [Singeli Agnew / Al Jazeera]Ammar al-Baluchi is the nephew of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He is accused of transferring money to the hijackers. A citizen of Pakistan, he was captured there in 2003 and spent his first days in CIA custody at the Dark Prison.He is portrayed in the opening scenes of the controversial movie Zero Dark Thirty as a detainee who the CIA says provided useful information under torture. The agency has cited his case to justify its use of enhanced interrogation techniques, but the Senate investigation refuted the claim.Baluchi was one of 36 CIA detainees who were then sent on to Guantanamo. Until recently, even the memories of these detainees were considered classified information by the US government. According to Baluchi's attorney, James Connell, since the release of the Senate investigation summary, that designation has slowly started to change.Fault Lines sent a list of questions to Baluchi focusing specifically on the enhanced interrogation techniques he experienced in US custody. He answered some of them in his own handwriting; others were retyped during a government classification review process. (Some were either not answered or did not pass the classification review process.) Below is a portion of that Q&A, which constitutes the first time Baluchi has communicated directly with the media.Fault Lines: Can you describe how water was used during your "interrogations?"Fault Lines: How was sleep deprivation used during interrogations, and what effect did it have on you?Fault Lines: What was the single worst experience you had while being interrogated by the CIA?Fault Lines: Is there anything you would like to say to the designers of the CIA programme or your interrogators?Prisoner #24: Jamil El-BannaJamil El Banna says he was kidnapped by Gambian intelligence officers and handed over to Americans [Al Jazeera]In 2002, during a business trip to Gambia, Jamil El Banna says he was kidnapped by Gambian intelligence officers and handed over to Americans. He would soon end up on the floor of a private plane to Kabul with his legs and hands bound.El Banna had told his wife he had be in Gambia for two to three weeks. He wasn't able to speak to her again for more than four years. According to the CIA torture report, el Banna (or number 36) was in the Dark Prison for six or seven days.He disputes this, claiming he was there between three weeks and a month before being transferred to a military prison in Bagram, 50km north of Kabul. Three and a half months after his initial detainment, he would be taken to Guantanamo Bay.During his interview with Fault Lines last summer in London, he noted that the sound of an airplane passing over reminded him of his five years in captivity.Fault Lines: You remember your experiences when you hear the noise of a plane?El Banna: I always remember them. I'd never forget. They were very tough times. I try to forget, but I can't. The horrible moments, the insults, the torture. There are some things I have forgotten.In the report on the CIA torture programme, it says you were put in a "stress position" while in the Dark Prison. Can you describe what it was?What is meant by "stress position" is that they tie your arms to a metal bar, so you're half-standing. So neither standing nor sitting, practically bent over. You can't move at all. You're stuck. There are placeholder holes in the wall. They tie you up like this for days. Then they bring it down and tie you like this. And then they lower it further.My back probably can't straighten itself any more. It's angled a bit. So imagine being in this position for three or four days. And then they'd tie you to the ground and you wouldn't be able to stand up or move at all. Of course you're hands are tied up. You're abdomen is tied up. Your feet are tied up, and then you're tied to the wall. This is the torture that is called "stress position".They just left me for a whole month. I would scream at the top of my lungs because of how painful it was. At that moment, I preferred death, and not to be tortured in this manner.You've gone through this horrific ordeal. How does it affect your life today?Of course my memory, I've lost it. I've lost the ability to focus and to remember. I could put this phone down here and then forget where I put it. Previously my memory was excellent. My wife tells me my memory is gone. She's the one who tells me these things.I also have night terrors. My wife knows this best. I wake up scared, lost and sweating. In those moments, I'm remembering those situations.My back is in pain. I can't stand for more than 10 minutes. I'm taking pills. Sometimes I can't sleep because I get extremely worried. I have prescription sleeping pills so I can sleep.Can you estimate how long will it take before you can put that experience behind you?I don't think that'll happen. I'm going to stay like this. I'm going to remember everything and what I've lost. My brothers are gone. My mother is gone. [Editor's note: All died while El Banna was in custody.] Those losses have shattered my heart. They've had a vast impact on me. How could I have a normal life? I can't.Do you think you were a different person than you were before?Of course. When I entered Guantanamo, I was in my 40s. I had dark hair and a dark beard. When I left, all my hair was white.Do you ever get depressed? Have there been any other psychological impacts?If I get depressed, I take a pill and I feel better. I have a report on my case written by top doctors that's about 200 pages on my psychological situation.How often do you talk about your experiences with family and friends?I don't talk about it typically. This is the first time I talked about it to anyone. I get depressed when I talk about it. I get dizzy. I don't like to talk about it.Former CIA detainee Jamil El Banna demonstrates a so-called "stress position" used during interrogations for correspondent Sebastian Walker and Sami al-Hajj, an ex-Guantanamo detainee who is now a journalist for Al Jazeera.Here's the link -https://www.reuters.com/article/idIN267755544420140801

"To my colleagues at CNN both in front of and behind the cameras. Without your collective efforts, this book would not have been possible. We truly did go “all in” to cover this story. And we will continue to do so, wherever it goes."A large commercial airliner going missing without a trace for so long is unprecedented in modern aviation. It must not happen again.— Tony Tyler, director general, IATAWhere’s that plane?” If there is one question I get asked most these days, this is it. From politicians and CEOs to doormen and cabdrivers, time and again they want to know, “What happened to that plane? Where is it?” Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 — with 239 people aboard — departed from Kuala Lumpur shortly after midnight on March 8, 2014, bound for Beijing, China, and has never been seen since. Despite the largest aviation search in history, virtually nothing was found of the aircraft in the wake of its disappearance. Sixteen months later, thousands of miles from the flight’s path, a piece of an airplane’s wing washed ashore on Reunion Island. Still, this bit of evidence and a flimsy trail of electronic satellite data are all we have to go on—plus a huge amount of speculation and confusion.“The most difficult search ever undertaken in human history.”When Australia’s prime minister Tony Abbott uttered those words in April 2014, it was not just the usual hyperbole of a politician. What happened to MH370 has been described as a unique, unprecedented, and extraordinary mystery. Planes may crash, but they are not supposed to disappear without a trace. Earlier ocean crashes, such as Air France 447 or Air India 182, have demonstrated that wreckages can typically be located within hours. Airlines today own the most modern aircraft, featuring up-to-date navigation technology, while regulations govern everything from the number of hours a pilot can fly to the fire-resistant fabric used in the passenger seats. Despite the precautions, no one has been able to pinpoint the final resting place of MH370 and those on board. All the while we know that if you lose your iPhone, it can be traced within minutes.At the heart of this mystery remains the question of the cause of the plane’s disappearance. Was it mechanical, or was it criminal: Did someone deliberately take over the aircraft and set it on a course to the south Indian Ocean, intending to kill all on board? Would that someone turn out to be an unknown hijacker or terrorist, or could it have been one of the pilots?Do I have a view of what might have happened? I do, and I will share it. In doing so, I am not blind to the obvious options, but prefer to keep an open mind on the eventual outcome. As will become clear in the chapters that follow, as a television journalist, I became frustrated, and even angry, with some of the pundits with whom I had to work who were quite prepared to convict the pilots long before any evidence had been found. Instead, this book will stick to the facts as we know them. In the end, you will be left to make up your own mind about where you think the evidence leads.The disappearance of MH370 has been a serious failure for the multibillion-dollar aviation industry, revealing disturbing facts and behaviors. That one of the most advanced aircraft in the world should vanish, while an airline left hundreds of desperate families waiting for news of their loved ones, is unpardonable. In response, airlines have rewritten their rules from top to bottom. An alphabet soup of international organizations responsible for air travel safety held high-level meetings and set up a task force to look at ways to ensure that planes are always being tracked in real time. Even CEOs I spoke to were as astounded as the general public that planes were not always being tracked to a fine point of precision. Some of the changes did not come soon enough: as suspicion about MH370’s pilots increased, discussions were held about a “two-person in the cockpit” rule, stipulating that if one pilot temporarily leaves the cockpit, he or she should be replaced by a flight attendant. Yet the considerable amount of talk led to very little action. If such a change had been made, the crashing of Germanwings 9525, in which a rogue pilot deliberately flew his airliner into a mountain, possibly would not have happened.When all is said and done, MH370 boils down to one simple fact. For the first time since the Wright brothers first flew, this industry, which prided itself on a policy of “safety first,” is having to cope with the unthinkable: a plane disappeared. It is no wonder the head of the airline organization IATA, Tony Tyler, decried, “A large commercial airliner going missing without a trace for so long is unprecedented in modern aviation. And it must not happen again.”The fascination with MH370 goes deeper than an aviation story.International diplomatic and political issues have been raised too. More than 60 percent of the passengers on board the plane were Chinese citizens, and the Chinese government wasted little time in flexing its muscles on their behalf. The relatives of Chinese victims were put up in a Beijing hotel where regular briefings were given by low-level Malaysian government and airline officials. These were acrimonious events, interrupted frequently by hysterical outbursts from distraught family members frustrated at the lack of information they were being given. The way the relatives were treated was shabby at best.Then there was the role of the Malaysian government itself. Were they a bunch of incompetents who had no idea what they were doing, doomed to make mistake after mistake? Or perhaps the truth was something more sinister: a cover-up for an erroneous military strike? Few people will deny that the first weeks of this crisis were not something of which the Malaysians can be proud. As the tensions rose across the South China Sea, the fate of MH370 rapidly became entwined in a diplomatic game of realpolitik, mystery, intrigue, and failure.As planes get bigger, and the ultra-long-haul flight becomes more common, the fact that MH370 happened is worrying, for it should never have happened.THE PLANE AND PASSENGERSAircraft Reg: 9M-MROAircraft Type: Boeing 777-200ERBuilt & Delivered: May 29, 2002 (11 years 9 months 9 days)Flight Hrs: 53,465Comms: 3 VHF radios, 2 HF radios, 1 SATCOM, 2 ATC transpondersSouls on Board: 239Crew: 12Pax: 227THE PILOTSThe Captain: Zaharie Ahmad Shah. Malaysian, age 53. Total flying hours: 18,365 hours. Experience on 777: 8,659 hours. Joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981.First Officer: Fariq Abdul Hamid. Malaysian, age 27. Total flying hours: 2,763. Experience on 777: 39 hours. Joined Malaysia Airlines in 2007.THE FLIGHTMH370, Kuala Lumpur to BeijingMARCH 8 (MALAYSIA STANDARD TIME)00:27 Push-back00:41 Takeoff00:42 Directed to Igari (waypoint)00:50 Directed to climb FL35000:50 Read-back FL35001:01 Advises reached FL35001:07 ACARS last transmission (provided total fuel remaining)01:07 Repeats FL35001:19 Handoff to Vietnam “Contact HCM 120.9 good night”01:19 Read-back “Good night Malaysian 370” LAST WORDSIn the case of the safety history of the 777, there was nothing to worry about. The 777, which first came into service in 1995, has an exemplary safety record. In almost twenty years, there had never been an accident where passengers had died in a plane crash. In 2013, Asiana 214 crash-landed in San Francisco. Two passengers died after they escaped from the aircraft and were run over by a fire truck responding to the accident. A third passenger died later in the hospital. The only other major 777 incident at the time of MH370 was the crash landing of the British Airways Flight 38 at London Heathrow. That came about because ice had formed in the fuel lines during a frigid flight from Beijing. When the ice jolted free, it blocked the line and starved the engines of fuel. The plane lost power and glided the last few miles to crash just short of the runway. Fortunately, everyone survived.Having seen the state of the crashed aircraft with both Asiana and British Airways, I find it a miracle that no one was killed when the planes hit the ground — a testament, I have no doubt, to Boeing’s ability to build superb airplanes (and the same is true for Airbus!). The 777 was, and still is, among the safest aircraft, and I had no hesitation in saying so on-air, then or now."We owe it to the grieving families, we owe it to everyone who travels by air, to get to the bottom of this mystery."—Tony Abbott, Australian prime ministerWell, he was voted out of power and that is that.In the following days, then weeks, months, and now years after MH370’s disappearance, Chris and all my other anchor colleagues have asked me the same question again and again. My answer has always been the same. “Yes, they will find it. They must.” As the time has gone by, sometimes I think I detect a certain wry smile on my colleagues’ faces as the words I uttered with such certitude come back to haunt me.So far I have been proved wrong, and with the exception of the single flaperon, nothing of the plane has been found. Some are now saying that the plane may never be found, that the task is too great. Assuming the Inmarsat data is correct, and the plane is lying along the seventh arc, the water is too deep, the ocean canyons too wide, the area too large. The search teams could be trolling right over the wreckage and never notice it.Of course we want to know what happened during those moments, on the morning of March 8, 2014, at 1:19, just after Captain Zaharie said, “Good night Malaysian 370.” But if we never discover the facts, there are plenty of other issues occasioned by the plane’s disappearance and it is these that must be resolved. There is the failure of air traffic control on that night, the confusion and political interference in the search operation, and the new methods of tracking planes and retrieving vital black-box data that are now being considered.Sixteen months after MH370 went missing, I was on assignment in Florida for CNN Business Traveller when I got the email. My producer Saskya Vandoorne wrote, “Twitter is abuzz with MH370 . . . probably a false lead but a wing has washed up near the Reunion Island.” She enclosed a picture of the object found in the western Indian Ocean. I was about ten miles from Legoland, where I was filming the next part of our show on theme parks. As I looked at the photo it was obvious that this was something significant. It was a part of a large aircraft wing, probably one of the flaps.Within hours, larger, better photos of the missing plane part had been published and we were comparing it to online schematics of the Boeing 777 wing. The pictures suggested that the piece was part of the control surfaces of the wing. Rather than the flaps, it appeared to be one of the plane’s two flaperons. A flaperon is a hybrid piece of equipment that combines the functions of the flaps and the ailerons, hence the name flaperon. The ailerons control the left and right banking of the aircraft by going up and down into the airflow, helping raise or lower the wing to make turns. The flaps extend on takeoff and landing and increase the wings’ size, giving the plane greater lift at slower speeds. The flaperons are part of a plane’s steering mechanism, and allow the pilot to bank the plane. At slower speeds they also extend marginally out of the wing in order to give greater stability and lift. As a passenger, you can see the flaperon in action if you sit behind the wing. It is on the trailing edge and is located nearer the fuselage. You will see it bouncing up and down on takeoff and landing as it stabilizes the aircraft, unlike the flaps, which extend in several sections then retract into the wing. The flaperon remains active throughout the flight (although at higher speeds it is far less noticeable).After some initial confusion over a number reportedly printed on the piece, it was confirmed as 657BB. It was described in the Boeing 777 maintenance manual as “flaperon Leading Edge Panel.”2 Another piece of debris was also recovered on the beach: the remnants of some sort of suitcase or backpack.While we waited for the aviation investigators to make a final determination on the source of the flaperon, I was being asked one vital question, hour after hour: Was it possible for a piece of debris from MH370 to have traveled 2,500 miles from the most likely crash site? It became obvious that the answer was, unequivocally, yes. If you look at a map, you’ll see that Reunion is on the opposite side of the Indian Ocean from Australia. It is a straight shot across the water from the most likely search zone to the coast of East Africa, where the island is located. Experts were put on-air reminding us that they had long predicted that the currents of the southern Indian Ocean Gyre, swirling around, creating a great sea garbage tank, would eventually cause the debris to drift across to the other side.In March 2014, the experts were telling us that eventually, something would be washed up on the western side of the Indian Ocean. It was all backed up by solid scientific evidence from the University of Western Australia, which showed us its drift-modeling forecast, which indicated that after eighteen months, wreckage would land in that region.If we were surprised by this development, our expert oceanographers were not.As the news of the find flashed around the world, it was particularly noted in Paris, where a new bureaucratic wrinkle was about to be added to the proceedings. Reunion has been under the control of France since the seventeenth century. It is now classed as an overseas territory and considered an administrative region, or prefecture, of France. Even though the French had played only a limited, advisory role in the MH370 investigation so far, the fact that the flaperon had washed up on French soil meant the French authorities took responsibility for handling the debris, which had to be transported to France for specialized examination. Thus, late on Friday, July 31, the flaperon was crated and boarded onto an Air France 777 flight bound for Paris. As I watched the video of the plane taking off I thought of the strange juxtaposition of one 777 carrying in its belly a vital part of another 777, taking it on a journey to release any secrets it had carried for the past sixteen months.As the piece was making its way to France, Boeing sources made it clear that yes, their experts recognized this as a flaperon from a 777 but they couldn’t say whether it was from 9M-MRO without further tests. This was backed up by comments from the Australian deputy prime minister, Warren Truss, who said the flaperon was a “major lead” and was “not inconsistent with a Boeing 777.”It was a very strange situation: everyone agreed that this was a 777 flaperon, but no one would say it’s the flaperon. Yet what else could it be? There were no other missing 777s in that part of the world. Though no 777 had reported losing a flaperon in flight — it’s the sort of thing a pilot would notice pretty quickly — everyone stopped short of weighing in definitively on the piece of debris. The French transferred the flaperon from Paris to Balma near Toulouse, and the headquarters of the Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA). The DGA is part of the Ministry of Defense and is a specialist laboratory and testing center for the military and civilian aerospace industry. In many ways it was the perfect place to send the flaperon, as the DGA did much of the work on the wreckage of Air France 447, which had been in the water for years. This gave them expertise in analyzing pieces exactly like this one.The judicial authorities in France were now calling the shots because four of the passengers on board MH370 were French citizens. With a hijacking or other criminal act looming as a possibility, under French law the judicial authorities were given primacy to inquire into what had happened. The inspection of the flaperon was to be conducted under the control nd presence of three French judges carrying out their legal mandate. Inevitably a bureaucratic circus ensued. In Paris, meetings had been held between the French and Malaysian governments to determine how to handle this development. In Toulouse, there were representatives from the BEA, NTSB, the Malaysian DCA, Malaysia Airlines, the Australian ATSB, the Chinese, Boeing—it seemed everyone had to be there to make sure proper protocol was followed during the inspection of the flaperon. Its analysis didn’t begin until four days after the piece arrived in France. It left me and my colleagues wondering what on earth was going on and taking so long.Finally, on Wednesday, August 5, 2015, it was time to reveal what they had found. An announcement was expected at 8 p.m. Paris time, from a French prosecutor, and then a statement from the Malaysian prime minister, Najib Razak. That was the plan, yet the Malaysians weren’t going for it. Ten minutes before the French were to present their findings, the prime minister spoke. From everything I have heard, the Malaysians were determined that because this was their plane and their investigation, it was their right to speak first. Here is the crucial part of Razak’s statement:An international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370. We now have physical evidence that, as I announced on 24th March last year, flight MH370 tragically ended in the southern Indian Ocean.Within minutes of the prime minister’s statement, the deputy prosecutor in France, Serge Mackowiak, held his news conference. We waited for a similar announcement of “conclusiveness.” It never came.What was a cut-and-dried conclusion for the Malaysians was a matter of “strong presumption” for the French.The prosecutor said that Malaysia Airlines representatives had seen specific similarities that linked the flaperon to the plane. But he didn’t say what they were. No one mentioned the presence of a serial number, which would seem to be the only conclusive proof of its origins.This was a shambles. The first time potentially hard evidence of the plane is found and the authorities managed to make a complete mess of it by differing in their wording. It beggars belief that something like this was able to happen.The families, scattered around the world, had been given an early warning of a few moments about the announcement. Some received it by text message, others by email, while luckier ones got a phone call from Malaysian embassy officials. They were given the prime minister’s version of the announcement: This flaperon was part of the plane. The plane went down in the southern Indian Ocean. Yet all of a sudden we in the media were questioning this conclusion. Not surprisingly, the families of the Chinese victims were having nothing of it. Soon they were out on the streets, protesting in front of the Malaysian embassy in Beijing.Now that the French authorities had said with “certainty” that the flaperon was from MH370, one key question had been definitively answered: the plane had indeed gone down somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. Many of the more fanciful theories about the disappearance, including the ones about landing on Diego Garcia or in the Maldives, could now be put to rest. (The conspiracy theorists will never let up, and will claim the flaperon was planted by the Chinese, Americans, or someone else who shot down the plane.)An in-depth examination of the part will probably reveal how and when it separated from the aircraft, and whether this occurred in flight or as the plane hit the water. What the flaperon will not reveal is the exact location where the plane went down. This was confirmed by the ATSB in its report published in December 2015: “While this debris find is consistent with the current search area it does not provide sufficient information to refine it.”5 It seems the flaperon won’t reveal the secret of where the plane is.Nor will the flaperon reveal what happened at 1:19 after “Good night Malaysian Three Seven Zero.” Unless there was an explosion (almost certainly there wasn’t) and residue is found (highly unlikely after all this time), the only information that the piece can possibly yield will be how it separated from the aircraft.After an accident, finding the plane is essential. Of course, the recovery of bodies must be a top priority of the airline. But to discover what happened, and how to prevent its happening again, it is also necessary to retrieve, and to analyze the contents of, the black-box recorders. MH370 rightly created huge concern among both travelers and the aviation industry. Time and again on various shows, as I explained the difficulty of the search, anchors would look incredulous and ask the same question: “If we can find the location of our lost iPhones easily online, how come a modern jetliner could just disappear without a trace?” Every day people are using ordinary technology to find something as small and commonplace as a cell phone. Yet in the case of MH370, tens of millions of dollars were being spent during months of searching the deep ocean in appalling conditions, and no one could find something as large as a 777, which costs $250 million! Months after it disappeared, we had no certainty where the plane had flown, or where on the ocean bed it lay.To track a plane with certainty, air traffic control must know where it is at all times, even when the plane’s communications equipment has been switched off, disabled, or has failed. The goal must be to receive as much information as possible from the aircraft while it is still flying. Looking at MH370, I can trace all the problems back to what happened on the night when the 777 had been able to evade the most sophisticated air traffic technology. The plane’s transponders had been switched off, the ACARS system was disabled, and there were no radio signals. The plane had “gone silent.” It was able to continue flying without anyone noticing partly because of terrible human errors made by air traffic controllers and radar operators. But, even discounting these initial mistakes, it was the long, seven-hour flight over the southern Indian Ocean that turned an incident in Southeast Asia into the world’s biggest aviation mystery. It is only stating the obvious to say that surely the technology should be put in place so that no plane can fly for so long, anywhere in the world, without air traffic control knowing its whereabouts. The public has rightly said it’s a disgrace, and the industry has to make sure it can never happen again.What is galling about MH370 is that this was not the first occasion when a major jetliner went missing and it took several years to find it. The industry had had to cope with some of the very same issues five years before, in June of 2009, when Air France 447 went missing over the South Atlantic. By now you will recall that this was the A330 that had a problem with speed indicator pitot tubes. The pilots flew the aircraft into a stall and it crashed.No radar was tracking Air France 447 when the crash happened, and no air traffic control center was following it in real time. Most fliers are amazed to learn that planes are not always tracked by radar when they are in the air, crossing the globe. Air traffic control radar constantly monitors the airspace over landmasses like Europe or the United States, where the sheer number of planes in the sky demands full coverage. Any plane that deviates from its flight plan is quickly noticed. With Germanwings 8501, only three minutes and fifty-three seconds passed after Andreas Lubitz initiated the unauthorized descent over the French Alps before the air traffic controllers were calling him on the radio demanding an explanation (and some would say even this was too slow). During the next ten minutes, until the plane hit the mountains, fourteen additional radio calls from four different sources attempted to contact the pilots. Suffice it to say, over most stretches of populated land, air traffic control responses are typically swift.There are, however, large parts of the globe where no radar exists, including the airspace over the world’s oceans. Radar coverage requires ground-based facilities. At sea, both the distances and the costs involved mean it is neither practical nor reasonable to build floating sites for oceanic radar.Of course, the absence of radar doesn’t mean that planes aren’t being supervised as they cross the oceans. Consider the thousands of aircraft that cross the Atlantic each day between North America and Europe. As the plane travels over water, traditional radar coverage ends about 250 miles after they leave behind the Canadian or Irish coast. Radar doesn’t return until they are within similar range of land on the other side. Instead there is a complicated system of “tracks” where planes fly specific east- and westbound airways, which change daily with the changes in the jet stream. The pilots are given definite times when they must join the track to begin their oceanic crossing. The planes are spaced out, roughly ten minutes apart, and this long chain of aircraft moves through the sky. Throughout the journey they communicate their position regularly, using high-frequency radios or, more usually today, satellite-based systems. A similar track method called PACOTS is used across the North Pacific between the US and Asia. If tracks aren’t being used, then planes are directed to waypoints along standard airways. Again, the aircraft regularly reports its position so air traffic control can safely space out the planes.Air France 447 was out of Brazil’s radar coverage and had just passed over waypoint ORARO, heading for waypoint TASIL. Fortunately, the plane’s ACARS system was programmed to send its location automatically every ten minutes. Five minutes had elapsed between the last transmission and the crash into the water. After calculating the maximum distance AF447 could have traveled in those five minutes, the investigators came up with a search area of forty nautical miles, covering seventeen thousand square kilometers. It took several days before the first floating debris was spotted. In the end, AF447 was found just 6.5 miles from the last known position of the flight and searchers were able to retrieve the black box.I still believe they will find it. I say this not out of some simplistic view that missing planes are always found, but because the plane must be found; the vanishing of such a large aircraft is simply not acceptable. There are more than 1,200 of the 777 family of planes flying around the world today.After the search teams have finished covering the 46,000 square miles (120,000 square kilometers) currently designated as the most probable place where the plane went down, if nothing has been found there, the whole matter becomes much more problematic. The Malaysians and the Australians have said they will stop searching at this point, because in the absence of any new evidence of where to look, increasing the zone would cease to be feasible. They can’t search the entire length of the seventh arc.The search must somehow continue. That is what I really mean when I say, “They will find the plane, they must.” There can be no temptation to consign this to the history books as an aviation mystery that was too difficult to solve. If the searchers find nothing in their search, then they need to go back to square one. This will involve questioning everything that they have believed to be true and seeing if it remains valid. The inquiry should open its doors and its minds to other experts who may have a different perspective. There has been much criticism of the tight-fisted way information has been held, and there are independent experts who might have had something to contribute who have been shut out of the investigation.All of this is in the future. At the time of this writing, there is still more ocean to be searched. So far they have spent less than the list price of a single brand-new 777-300 searching for MH370. In the big scheme of aviation, I think the lives of 239 people, the confidence in 1,200 flying aircraft, and the reputation of the industry demand that yes, they find it. They must.Update April 19, 2016Two pieces of debris that washed up on African shores are "almost certainly" from the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER that was operating the fateful MH370 flight.The first piece of debris, in South Africa, was initially identified as a segment from a 777 flap fairing panel by the presence of a stenciled part number. Although the stenciling did not match that used by Boeing, it was consistent with stencils used by Malaysia Airlines on its 777s, including the missing aircraft – 9M-MRO.The second part, in Mozambique, was also identified from a ‘No step’ stenciling, which again corresponded with Malaysian Airlines’ stencils but not those originally used by Boeing. The piece is part of the aircraft’s horizontal stabiliser.ATSB outlines analysis process for MH370 debrisAnd Here Come More Conspiracy Stories: May 3, 2016More than two years after it disappeared, the mystery of what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 continues to baffle the world. Wild rumours continue to circulate about the fate of the Malaysian Airlines jet.From the moment news broke that the Boeing 777 had gone missing, conspiracy theorists have given their explanations for both the disappearance and the investigators' failure to crack the mystery.North Korea? Vladimir Putin? The US military? Fake debris? Life Insurance scam? China?MH370 conspiracy theories: What happened to the Boeing 777?Update: May 12, 2016The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has identified two more pieces of debris recovered off the African coast as most likely coming from the Boeing 777-200ER that was operating Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.In an update report, the Bureau says that the two pieces were found independently at beaches in Mossel Bay, South Africa on 22 March, and Rodrigues Island in Mauritius on 30 March.Both pieces were sent to Canberra for analysis, following a request from the Malaysian government, and were handled in accordance with ICAO practice, as per two other pieces that the ATSB previously identified.‘Part 3’ was identified as a segment from an engine cowling due to the Rolls-Royce stenciling, and it conformed to applicable drawings from Boeing as being from a 777.Although the stencil was not consistent with that originally used by the manufacturer, it did conform with the one used by Malaysia Airlines on its 777s. Nonetheless, the Bureau says that there were no identifiers tracing it specifically to the missing jet, which was registered 9M-MRO.The other part, labelled ‘Part 4’ was identified as part of the R1 door assembly from a Malaysia Airlines 777. Specifically, a piano hinge attached to it was consistent with that used on a table hinge support, and the trim line was consistent with other aircraft.“There were no identifiers on the panel segment that were unique to 9M-MRO, however the pattern, colour and texture of the laminate was only specified by MAB for use on Boeing 747 and 777 aircraft. There is no record of the laminate being used by any other Boeing 777 customer,” the ATSB says.Although marine ecology analysis is continuing, the Bureau says that both parts are “almost certainly” from the missing 777. It also came to the same conclusion on the two other parts that were previously examined.ATSB identifies two more parts from MH370 jetUpdate, May 14, 2016Terrible, terrible news, if true.“We know the plane is in the southern Indian Ocean. Generally, airline pilots and other genuine aviation experts believe captain Zaharie Shah hijacked his own Boeing 777 in a planned suicide mission.Self-appointed armchair experts are often referred to as “aviation experts” by broadcasters, rather than the aviation consultants they actually are. Such people express opinions that may sound plausible to the non-pilot fraternity but are often rubbish.This search appears to have been conducted in the wrong area, based on the Australian Transport Safety Bureau unresponsive pilot scenario. Yet we know from the National Geographic recent Air Crash Investigations documentary, which held Shah responsible, that only three minutes elapsed from when he said goodnight to Kuala Lumpur air traffic control to when he disappeared electronically and turned southwest.If there was no pilot involvement the aircraft just would have flown itself to the programmed destination of Beijing. It was still under control 90 minutes later when it turned south just north of Sumatra.If, as generally believed, Shah was trying to hide the aircraft in as remote a location as possible to hide his crime then he would endeavour to fly as far as possible before the fuel ran out. As an experienced Boeing 777 captain, this is how I would manage this. Fly at long-range cruise speed mach 0.83 at as high an altitude as possible for maximum range. As the first engine flamed out due to fuel starvation I would start a slow-speed descent at 220 knots indicated airspeed with the second engine at idle. Just before second engine flame-out, I would select flap while still having hydraulic pressure to ensure my sea impact speed would not be so severe as to cause massive amounts of debris. Passing 5000 feet and flying on limited flight control hydraulic pressure from the automatically deployed air driven generator I would turn into wind and try to judge a ditching at low speed so that the aircraft would not break up into pieces. This speed would be still in the order of 250km/h or greater.I recently was well out to sea and observed how big the sea state can be, with very large waves in a 50km/h wind. In the latitudes south of 40 degrees the winds and sea state is even greater.Some pieces of debris — confirmed as coming from MH370 — have been turning up. The first was a right flaperon that I suspect was due to the right engine being shorn off, as they are designed to do, in a heavy impact with the sea.Later an associated piece turned up, also from the area immediately behind the right engine. And then a piece from the horizontal stabiliser (tailplane) leading edge, which also would support the shearing off of the right engine. The weakest part of the fuselage is at the juncture of the body and the wing. It appears to me that during the ditching the aircraft broke at this juncture and this is generally, depending on the seating configuration, where the partition between business class and economy occurs, so some panelling was dislodged.All this does not answer the question of why the ATSB did not listen to experts who would have placed the search area at least 400km farther south and west. That is why MH370 has not been found.”Byron Bailey, a veteran commercial pilot with more than 45 years’ experience and 26,000 flying hours, is a former RAAF fighter pilot and trainer, and was a senior captain with Emirates for 15 years, during which he flew the same model Boeing 777 passenger jet as Malaysia Airlines MH370.Debris confirms MH370 crash zone in Indian Ocean