A/HRC/13/42* page 60 66 prisoners in the CIA programme were regarded as less significant. Some of them were subsequently handed over to the United States military and transferred to Guantanamo, while others were rendered to the custody of their home countries or other countries. In very few cases were they released. 1. Afghanistan 132. Outside of the specific “high-value detainee” programme, most detainees were held in a variety of prisons in Afghanistan. Three of these are well-known: a secret prison at Bagram airbase, reportedly identified as “the Hangar;”228 and two secret prisons near Kabul, known as the “dark prison” and the “salt pit”. During an interview held with the experts, Bisher al-Rawi indicated that, in the dark prison, there were no lights, heating or decoration. His cell was about 5x9 feet with a solid steel door and a hatch towards the bottom of it. He only had a bucket to use as a toilet, an old piece of carpet and a rusty steel bar across the width of the cell to hang people from. All the guards wore hoods with small eye holes, and they never spoke. Very loud music was played continuously. He also indicated that he had been subjected to sleep deprivation for up to three days and received threats. Binyam Mohamed provided a similar account to the experts, as did the lawyer of Khaled El-Masri and Suleiman Abdallah. The experts heard allegations about three lesser-known prisons, including one in the Panjshir valley, north of Kabul, and two others identified as Rissat and Rissat 2, but it was not yet possible to verify these allegations. Of the prisoners identified as having been held in secret CIA custody (in addition to the above-mentioned high-value detainees), seven were eventually released and four escaped from Bagram in July 2005, namely Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan; Omar al-Faruq, a Kuwaiti, captured in Bogor, Indonesia, in 2002; Muhammad Jafar Jamal al-Kahtani, a Saudi, reportedly captured in Khost province, Afghanistan, in November 2006; and Abdullah Hashimi, a Syrian, also known as Abu Abdullah al-Shami.229 Five prisoners were reportedly returned to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in 2006: Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi; Hassan Raba’I and Khaled al-Sharif, both captured in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2003, who had “spent time in a CIA prison in Afghanistan”; Abdallah al-Sadeq, seized in a covert CIA operation in Thailand in the spring of 2004; and Abu Munder al-Saadi, both held briefly before being rendered to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.230 In May 2009, Human Rights Watch reported that its representatives briefly met Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi on a visit interrogation of high-value al-Qaida detainees”, 30 May 2005. Available from http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/clients/aclu/olc_05302005_bradbury.pdf. 228 “CIA rendition: the smoking gun cable”, ABC news, 6 November 2007. Available from http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/cia-rendition-t.html. See also the interview with Murat Kurnaz (annex II, case 14). 229 Eric Schmitt and Tim Golden, “Details emerge on a Brazen Escape in Afghanistan”, New York Times, 4 December 2005; available from www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/international/asia/04escape.html. 230 Craig Whitlock, “From CIA jails, inmates fade into obscurity”, Washington Post, 27 October 2007. Available from www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/10/26/AR2007102602326_pf.html.