Psychologists’ firm was paid $81m to implement CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program

A company formed by two psychologists who helped develop and implement the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) interrogation program that subjected terrorism suspects to psychological and physical abuse, sleep deprivation, waterboarding, and other torture techniques received $81m (£51.5m; €65.1m) for its services, an investigation by the US Senate Select Intelligence Committee has found.

A 524 page summary of the committee investigators’ 6700 page classified report was released on 9 December and alleged that the CIA program, launched after the September 11 terrorist attacks, was far more brutal than previously disclosed but had yielded little in the way of valuable intelligence.1

The two psychologists, who were given the pseudonyms Grayson Swigert and Hammond Dunbar in the heavily redacted summary, have been identified in press reports as James Elmer …