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Raymond Azar is a citizen of Lebanon who was captured by American security officials in Afghanistan.[1][2][3] He is notable because he is reported to have undergone abusive treatment at the United States' Bagram Theater Internment Facility in April 2009 that had been explicitly prohibited by United States President Barack Obama the day after he took office on January 21, 2009.

Azar was apprehended in Afghanistan on April 7, 2009. He testified that he was stripped naked, deprived of sleep, confined to a small, cold metal box.[1][3] He testified that he was not fed during the first thirty hours he was in US custody. He testified that his first interrogators at Bagram showed him photos of his family, and threatened him that he would never see them again.

Azar's testified about his treatment in Bagram during a trial in the USA for fraud.[1][3] He was charged with bribing US officicals to secure contracts for his company. Scott Horton, writing in the Huffington Post, reported that Department of Justice "rushed" to offer him a plea deal, after his damaging testimony about his treatment.[2]

Horton disputed the claims of American officials that Azar's treatment was "standard procedure", and that it was designed to protect Azar's health.[2] He characterized the treatment by Department of Justice officials as identical to the now prohibited rules for CIA snatch teams to conduct extraordinary renditions.

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  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Get back to the high moral ground on prisoner abuse [1] Leonard Pitts 2009-09-01
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 New CIA Docs Detail Brutal "Extraordinary Rendition" Process [2] Scott Horton 2009-08-28
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 The Forgotten Guantanamo: Prisoner Abuse Continues at Bagram Prison in Afghanistan [3] Matthias Gebauer, John Goetz and Britta Sandberg 2009-09-21
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