CIA interrogators staged a mock execution to frighten a terror suspect and threatened a captured Al-Qaida commander with a handgun and a power drill to squeeze out information, an internal investigator found.
The tactics of frightening with a gun, which officials described as a "threatened execution", were used on Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the 1999 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors and nearly sank the vessel, the New York Times reported.
The report cited former and current US officials who read a long-concealed agency report. A federal judge in New York has ordered a redacted version of the CIA's inspector general's report to be publicly released on Monday, in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Nashiri, who was captured in November 2002 and held for four years, ultimately became one of three Al-Qaida chieftains subjected to waterboarding -- a form of simulated drowning.
The report also said that a mock execution was staged in a room next to one terrorism suspect, according to Newsweek magazine, which cited two sources for its information.
During questioning, one interrogator showed Nashiri a gun and sought to frighten him into thinking he would be shot, the sources said. In a separate incident, a power drill was held near Nashiri's body and repeatedly turned on and off.
The federal torture statute prohibits a US national from threatening anyone in his or her custody with imminent death, the Times noted.
