NEW YORK, Dec 9: As a furore over the secret CIA torture tapes destroyed by the agency becomes more pronounced, a Pakistani detainee has claimed that he was subjected to “state-sanctioned torture,” the New York Times said on Sunday.

Majid Khan who lived in Baltimore, Maryland, through his lawyers claimed he “was subjected to an aggressive CIA detention and interrogation programme notable for its elaborate planning and ruthless application of torture”.

The documents also suggest that Mr Khan, and other ‘high-value’ detainees are now being held in a previously undisclosed area of the Guantanamo prison in Cuba he called Camp 7.

The newspaper said that those detainees included 14 men, some suspected of being former Al Qaeda officials, who President Bush acknowledged were held under a secret CIA programme. They were transferred to military custody at Guantanamo last year. The Times also said that when asked about Mr Khan’s assertions, Mark

Mansfield, a CIA spokesman, said: “The United States does not conduct or condone torture.”

He said a small number of “hardened terrorists” had required what he called “special methods of questioning” in what he called a lawful and carefully run programme.