The Accidental Torturer

"I thought 'torture tourism' was about the US and UK sending terror suspects to be interrogated in countries where it was OK to attach electrodes to their genitals, rather than just ask them politely whether they were a terrorist," declares thirty-two year old former banker Virgil Triplex. "I never realised that it could actually involve me being paid to travel the world to abuse people's human rights!" Croyden resident Triplex found himself recruited as a CIA interrogator after visiting Guantanamo Bay as part of a package holiday. "It was a natural progression from 'accident tourism' where you go on a cruise which visits various disaster areas - earthquake zones, famines, that sort of thing," he explains. "When you have money, there's nothing like seeing other people wallowing in abject misery to make you appreciate it more!" The Camp X-Ray excursion was the climax of a tour around various prisons and detention camps in South America and the Caribbean. "The only misery worse than that caused by a natural disaster is that inflicted on some poor bastard by his fellow man," says Triplex. "The tour was great - we got to see political prisoners tortured in every imaginable way in some of the worst hell holes in existence! We were even allowed to poke them with sticks in Columbia!"

The highlight of the holiday came in the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, where, as part of the tour, the tourists were each allowed to actually torture an inmate. "It was only for fifteen minutes, but it was brilliant." Triplex enthuses. "Obviously, you were under the supervision of a couple of official interrogators and you had to follow a set script where the questions were concerned, but you were allowed to employ any form of coercion you liked - electricity, waterboarding, physical abuse, even thumb screws!" To everyone's surprise, Triplex proved most adept at 'interrogation', his skillful combination of techniques coaxing a full confession from an al Qaida suspect who had previously resisted six months of abuse. "Of course, everyone thought at first it was just a fluke - beginner's luck," he says. "So they got me to work over a couple more inmates - I managed to get the details of a terror plot against Britney Spears and a plan to blow up Gracelands! After that this CIA bloke told me I was a natural, and offered me a job!" Triplex is enjoying his new job. "It isn't just the travel - I get far more job satisfaction than I ever did working in the City. In this job you really get to feel that you've changed people's lives for the better. It's a public service," he opines. "Not only that, but at parties I get far more respect from people when I tell them what I do now, than I ever did when I was a banker."