Former Connecticut Prosecutor to Probe Alleged CIA Abuse
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A Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut will investigate CIA mistreatment of terror suspects.
A Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut will investigate CIA mistreatment of terror suspects.
Attorney General Eric Holder has picked prosecutor John Durham for the job, an official told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to disclose the decision.
Durham is already investigating the destruction of videotapes of CIA interrogations and now will examine whether CIA officers or contractors broke laws in rough handling of suspects.
Durham became a prosecutor after graduating in 1975 from the University of Connecticut law school and a two-year detour as a Vista volunteer providing legal advice on a Crow Indian Reservation in Montana, the New York Times reports.
In 1999, he was assigned to look into a corrupt network in Boston involving police officers, federal agents and organized crime figures, the Times reported. He also oversaw the convictions of Mayors Joseph Ganim, of Bridgeport, on federal corruption charges, and Philip A. Giordano of Waterbury, on charges of having sex with minors, the newspaper reports.
The decision comes as the Obama administration releases a newly unclassified CIA report detailing CIA treatment of terror suspects.
The report says one interrogator threatened to kill the children of a Sept. 11 suspect, and another may have threatened to assault a suspect's mother in front of him.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC Connecticut
Posted Monday, Aug 24, 2009 - 3:05 PM EST
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