Key facts
- A secret CIA prison, "Detention Site Black," operated in Bucharest, Romania, from 2003 to 2005.
- Detainees at the site endured solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, and dousing with icy water.
- Ammar al-Baluchi, a detainee, had statements given to the FBI in 2007 ruled inadmissible due to torture.
- Romania reportedly received millions of dollars for hosting the CIA facility.
- Former Romanian President Ion Iliescu and national security adviser Ioan Talpes acknowledged the arrangement.
- The site is believed to have been located in a government building in northern Bucharest.
A secret CIA prison, known as "Detention Site Black," operated in Bucharest, Romania, between 2003 and 2005, where detainees endured harsh treatment including prolonged solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, and dousing with icy water. Ammar al-Baluchi, nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, described his detention as living in a refrigerator, with cells lit by fluorescent bulbs around the clock and forced standing for days.
Details of the treatment emerged in Guantanamo court filings, with a US military judge in April 2025 ruling that statements al-Baluchi gave to the FBI in 2007 were inadmissible due to the "lingering taint" of torture and cruel treatment inflicted in CIA custody, including in Romania.
The Romanian site was part of a network of secret prisons run by the CIA across three continents after 9/11. According to the Rendition Project, the CIA struck an agreement with Romanian authorities in mid-October 2002 to host the black site, reportedly in exchange for $8 million and "millions more." The first prisoners arrived by autumn 2003.
Former Romanian President Ion Iliescu confirmed in a 2015 interview that he approved a request from "our US allies" for a site around 2002-2003 as a "gesture of courtesy" ahead of Romania's NATO accession, stating he did not interfere with US activities there. His national security adviser at the time, Ioan Talpes, admitted to approving the leasing of a government building to the CIA and stated that Romania "did not have the interest to know what the Americans were doing" at the site.
Swiss Senator Dick Marty's 2007 report concluded that while few people in host countries knew of the centers, "the highest state authorities were aware." Later research indicated that after September 2004, Romanian officials were formally briefed by the US ambassador and CIA's Bucharest station chief on the program, which "clearly described" the use of torture. The site is believed to have been located in a government building of the National Registry Office for Classified Information (Orniss) in northern Bucharest, though Orniss has denied this speculation.