This is astonishing – and sad. In the Washington Post.<\/p>\n
For years, Brussels has been the epicenter for European outrage over the CIA\u2019s terrorist interrogation program. Now it is Belgium that has some explaining to do for its failure to effectively interrogate a high-value terrorist \u2014 an interrogation that may have foiled last week\u2019s deadly terrorist attacks. <\/a><\/p>\n When Salah Abdeslam, believed to be the logistics chief for an Islamic State terrorist cell, was captured, Belgian officials followed law enforcement procedures with precision. They provided Abdeslam a lawyer, told him he had the right to remain silent and put him into the Belgian criminal-justice system. Four days later, the terrorist cell carried out bombings in Brussels that killed 35 people<\/a> \u2014 including at least four Americans \u2014 and injured hundreds more.<\/p>\n Astonishingly, officials did not question Abdeslam at all <\/em>for his first 24 hours in custody<\/a>. He spent Friday night in the hospital recovering from a leg wound sustained in the raid. When he was finally returned to the police on Saturday, he was questioned by authorities for a grand total of .\u2009.\u2009. two hours \u2014 and then was not questioned again until after the attacks. Why? \u201cHe seemed very tired and he had been operated on the day before,\u201d a senior Belgian security official told Politico<\/a>.<\/p>\n He seemed tired?<\/em> That\u2019s precisely when they should be interrogating him. The CIA used sleep deprivation as one of its most effective interrogation tools. But for Belgians, a terrorist\u2019s exhaustion is a reason to stop questioning, not intensify it.<\/p>\n But here is the most incredible part: During those two hours of questioning, The Post reports<\/a>, \u201cinvestigators did not ask .\u2009.\u2009. about his knowledge of future plots.\u201d Seriously? Abdeslam was the logistics chief for the Brussels-based terrorist cell that carried out both the Paris and Brussels bombings. According to the New York Times<\/a>, \u201cHe was the fixer, renting cars, finding apartments, picking people up and dropping them off.\u201d He could have identified the other members of his cell; the safe houses they used; how they communicated, moved money, picked travel routes; and \u2014 most important \u2014 the targets they had selected.<\/p>\n But investigators did not bother to ask him about plans for new attacks. …<\/p>\n Sickening if you lost a family member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is astonishing – and sad. In the Washington Post. For years, Brussels has been the epicenter for European outrage over the CIA\u2019s terrorist interrogation program. Now it is Belgium that has some explaining to do for its failure to effectively interrogate a high-value terrorist \u2014 an interrogation that may have foiled last week\u2019s deadly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8060,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034\/revisions\/8060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}