Salt Pit The Salt Pit is the codename of an isolated clandestine CIA black site prison and interrogation center in Afghanistan . It is located north of Kabul and was the location of a brick factory prior to the Afghanistan War . The CIA adapted it for extrajudicial detention . In the winter of 2005 , the " Salt Pit " became known to the general public because of two incidents . Incidents . Death in custody . The recently assigned CIA case officer in charge of this prison directed the Afghan guards to strip Gul Rahman naked from the waist down , and chain him to the floor of his unheated cell , and leave him overnight , according to the Associated Press . Rahman was captured in Islamabad on October 29 , 2003 . In the morning , the suspect was dead . A post - mortem examination determined that he froze to death . The " Washington Post " described the CIA camp commandant as " newly minted " , on his first assignment . " ABC News " called the CIA camp commandant " a young , untrained junior officer " . The " Washington Post " ' s sources noted that the CIA camp commandant had subsequently been promoted . Rahman was buried in an unmarked grave , and his friends and family were never told of what happened to him . They learned of his fate in 2010 after an AP story revealed Rahman had died at Salt Pit . Khalid El - Masri . Khalid El - Masri , a German citizen , was kidnapped from the Republic of Macedonia and rendered to Afghanistan . El - Masri ' s name was similar to that of a suspect on the US ' s terrorist watchlist ; the Macedonian authorities thought he might be traveling on a forged passport , and notified the regional CIA station . A team of American CIA officials were dispatched to the Republic of Macedonia , where they kidnapped El - Masri after he was released by the Macedonian officers , but without regard to his legal rights under Macedonian law . It took over two months for the CIA official who ordered his arrest to assess whether El - Masri ' s passport was legitimate . El - Masri described being beaten and injected with drugs as part of his interrogation . On May 18 , 2006 U . S . Federal District Judge T . S . Ellis , III of the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed a lawsuit El - Masri filed against the CIA and three private companies allegedly involved with his transport , stating that a public trial would " present a grave risk of injury to national security . " A Court of Appeals also dismissed the case . On October 9 , 2007 the U . S Supreme Court declined to hear El - Masri ' s appeal of the lower courts , without comment . Location photographed . The artist / geographer Trevor Paglen claims to be the only civilian to have taken a photo of the Salt Pit . Using El - Masri ' s testimony , Paglen located the Salt Pit using Google Earth and traveled to Afghanistan , where he photographed the facility using a long - distance lens . He claims that he knew he was on the right track when he passed a goat herder wearing a baseball cap with the logo of Kellogg , Brown & Root on it . The photo was shown at Bellwether Gallery in New York City in 2006 , together with other items that documented Paglen ' s efforts to trace secret government projects . It was produced in an edition of one , and bore a price tag of $ 20 , 000 .