Former Gitmo prisoners condemn Sony's Kathryn Bigalo film, Zero Dark Thirty

Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai (left) and Zero Dark 30 director
Kathryn Bigelow

Two former Guantanamo detainees on Thursday condemned Zero Dark Thirty, a film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden whose brutal interrogation scenes have sparked a discussion over the use of extreme methods in the U.S. campaign against terror.
     Speaking at an event in London on the eve of the 11th anniversary of the opening of the U.S. prison camp in eastern Cuba, the pair said the film was an attempt to rehabilitate those guilty of human rights abuses.
     "These people are getting away not only with committing the torture ... they're justifying it," said one of the ex-detainees, Libyan-born Omar Deghayes, who was left partially blind after what he said was an American guard's attempt to gouge out his eyes.
     The other ex-detainee, Iraqi-born Bisher al-Rawi, said Hollywood films he used to watch portrayed torturers as the bad guys.
     Casting heroes as torturers "will justify a very, very different mindset," he said at the event organized by human rights group CagePrisoners. "I think that's very dangerous."