Gul Rahman

Gul Rahman (died 20 November 2002) was a suspected Afghan militant and torture victim who died in a secret CIA prison, or black site, located in northern Kabul, Afghanistan and known as the Salt Pit. He had been captured October 29, 2002.

His name was kept secret by the United States for more than seven years although his death was announced. Before his death he was left half-stripped and chained against a concrete wall on a night when the temperature was close to freezing. The United States government did not notify his family (wife and four daughters) of his death.

Capture and death
Gul Rahman was captured and arrested on 29 October 2002 during a joint operation by U.S. agents and Pakistani security forces against Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin. He was reportedly arrested with the physician Ghairat Baheer, the son-in-law of the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who leads the insurgent faction Hezb-e-Islami. Rahman had traveled from Peshawar to Islamabad, Pakistan for a medical checkup when he was arrested at the home of Ghairat Baheer, and subsequently flown by the CIA to Afghanistan.

A former U.S. official said Rahman was violent and uncooperative while in custody at the Salt Pit, a CIA black site or covert interrogation center. Rahman threatened to kill his guards, who responded by beating him, according to several former Central Intelligence Agency officials. Gul Rahman reportedly died on 20 November 2002 after being stripped naked from the waist down and shackled to a cold cement wall in the Salt Pit, where temperatures were approximately 36° Fahrenheit/2° Celsius.

His death prompted an internal CIA review and the development of improved guidance. No one was ever charged in his death.

After Rahman was identified in news accounts in April 2010, his family asked the International Red Cross for assistance in recovering his body for a religious burial.

Rescue of Hamid Karzai
According to Gul's brother, Habib Rahman, Gul Rahman was involved in a 1994 rescue of Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan since 2004. Karzai had been imprisoned by the government forces, and Rahman was working for the insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar's forces fired rockets at the building while Rahman entered and freed Karzai. Rahman took him to a safe house in Kabul.