When I did military service in the sabotage squad and captured Islamic terrorists, we'd adopt a practice of preparation for interrogations which has … - Nicolai Lilin

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When I did military service in the sabotage squad and captured Islamic terrorists, we'd adopt a practice of preparation for interrogations which has always bothered me. [...] First of all we'd remove their trousers and underpants. Then we'd make a sort of gag with their socks which we'd stuff into their mouths. [...] I didn't get it at first. Then I asked our captain about it. [...] He explained that this practice had been studied by some psychologists, and that it served to deprive the prisoners of their own dignity, and therefore break them. So when we brought them before the interrogator, the terrorists would start talking immediately. It wasn't so hard to extract information from them at that point.