CIA Detainee Gul Rahman Froze to Death at Black Site - No One Prosecuted for Homicide

Gul Rahman, an Afghan detainee, dies of hypothermia at a CIA black site in Afghanistan known as the “Salt Pit” after being shackled half-naked to a concrete floor in a freezing cell overnight. Rahman’s death is ruled a homicide by the CIA’s medical examiner, yet no one is ever prosecuted or held criminally accountable. The CIA officer who ordered Rahman’s treatment—which violated even the agency’s own guidelines for detention—receives a $2,500 cash award and faces no disciplinary action. Rahman’s death on November 20, 2002, becomes emblematic of the complete impunity enjoyed by CIA personnel who committed what amount to war crimes.

Rahman is captured by Afghan forces in Pakistan and turned over to the CIA in October 2002, suspected of connections to militants based on tenuous evidence. Within days of arriving at the Salt Pit facility north of Kabul, he is subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” including 48 hours of sleep deprivation, cold water dousing, and painful stress positions. The CIA station chief, a junior officer with minimal experience later identified as a woman in her 30s serving her first tour, orders interrogators to keep Rahman in increasingly harsh conditions despite evidence that he is cooperating and may have been misidentified.

On the night of November 19-20, 2002, guards shackle Rahman in a short-chain stress position wearing only a sweatshirt, despite freezing temperatures in his unheated concrete cell. The Salt Pit is described in CIA cables as a “dungeon” with crude conditions far below even minimal detention standards. When guards check on Rahman the next morning, he is dead. The autopsy determines the cause of death as hypothermia, complicated by dehydration and possible underlying health conditions. CIA headquarters is informed that Rahman was found dead “after several days of aggressive interrogation and harsh conditions of confinement.”

The CIA’s initial response is to cover up the circumstances. A cable from the station proposes disposing of Rahman’s body by dumping it on a road and claiming he died in a car accident. Headquarters rejects this plan, and Rahman is eventually buried in an unmarked grave in Afghanistan. His family is not notified of his death or whereabouts. The CIA opens an internal investigation and refers the case to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution. However, despite clear evidence that Rahman’s treatment caused his death and violated CIA detention standards, prosecutors decline to bring charges.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation later reveals that not only was the station chief not punished, she received a $2,500 cash bonus and was nominated for the CIA’s highest award for overseas officers. The Committee finds that Rahman’s interrogation and death exemplified the lack of oversight and accountability in the detention program. Rahman was held based on flimsy intelligence suggesting possible militant connections, subjected to torture exceeding authorized techniques, and died due to deliberate infliction of inhumane conditions—yet the person most responsible for his death was rewarded rather than prosecuted.

The Obama Justice Department reviews Rahman’s case as part of its limited investigation into CIA interrogations, examining whether his death warranted criminal charges. In 2012, the Justice Department closes the investigation without filing charges, determining that while Rahman’s treatment was brutal and caused his death, prosecutors could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the CIA officer intended to kill him. This standard effectively makes it impossible to prosecute any torture death short of deliberate murder, rendering the legal prohibition against torture-causing-death meaningless.

Rahman’s death and the subsequent impunity represent the extreme endpoint of the CIA torture program: a likely innocent man is kidnapped, tortured to death through deliberate infliction of hypothermia, and his killers not only escape prosecution but receive promotions and cash awards. His family never receives acknowledgment, apology, or compensation. The message sent to CIA personnel is clear—even homicide will not result in accountability if committed under the banner of counterterrorism. Rahman’s frozen body on a concrete floor becomes a symbol of how completely the United States abandoned legal and moral constraints in its torture program, and how thoroughly officials who committed these crimes were shielded from consequences.