Over one hundred prisoners have
died in suspicious circumstances in U.S. custody during the "war
on terror". Taxi to the Dark Side takes an in-depth look
at one case: an Afghan taxi driver called Dilawar who was considered
an honest and kind man by the people of his rustic village.
So when he was detained by the U.S military one afternoon,
after picking up three passengers, denizens wondered why this
man was randomly chosen to be held in prison, and, especially,
without trial?
Five days after his arrest Dilawar died in his
Bagram prison cell. His death came within a week of another
death of a detainee at Bagram. The conclusion, with autopsy
evidence, was that the former taxi driver and the detainee
who passed away before him, had died due to sustained injuries
inflicted at the prison by U.S. soldiers.
The documentary,
by award-winning producer Alex Gibney, carefully develops the
last weeks of Dilawar’s life and shows how decisions
taken at the pinnacle of power in the Bush Administration led
directly to Dilawar’s brutal death. The film documents
how Rumsfeld, together with the White House legal team, were
able to convince Congress to approve the use of torture against
prisoners of war.
Taxi to the Dark Side is the definitive exploration
of the introduction of torture as an interrogation technique
in U.S. facilities, and the role played by key figures of the
Bush Administration in the process. |