CIA no longer using secret prisons: US spy chief

In a U-turn to George Bush's policies to deal with terror, the CIA has shut down its secret prisons where the US spy agency used to interrogate suspected terrorists using harsh techniques, including waterboarding.  

In a letter to the agency's employees, CIA Director Leon Panetta has said that he informed the US Congress of its detention policies, following an executive order by President Barack Obama this January to close down the secret detention sites as well as the camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.  

The US spy chief said in his letter, issued yesterday, that the Central Intelligence Agency had discontinued "using contract employees to conduct interrogations" also.  

"CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites and has proposed a plan to decommission the remaining sites. I have directed our agency personnel to take charge of the decommissioning process and have further directed that the contracts for site security be promptly terminated," he wrote.  

The now-empty "black sites" in unidentified countries were used to detain suspects who were captured in the "war on terrorism" launched by former American President George W Bush after the September 11 attacks.

However, Panetta said that the CIA would continue to question suspects, using "a dialogue style of questioning that is fully consistent with interrogation approaches authorised and listed in the Army Field Manual" which bans harsh methods, the US media reported.  

"CIA officers do not tolerate, and will continue to promptly report, any inappropriate behaviour or allegations of abuse. That holds true whether a suspect is in the custody of an American partner or a foreign liaison service," he said.