Nasser Nasser / AP, file

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi meets with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, left in Tripoli, Libya, in Sept. 2008. Human Rights Watch on Thursday released a report painting a more complete picture of Washington's close cooperation with the regime of Libya's former dictator in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

A human rights organization says it has collected evidence of two previously unreported cases in which U.S. agents used waterboarding or a similar harsh interrogation technique on Libyan militants held by American forces in Afghanistan. 

The 154-page report by Human Rights Watch also paints a more complete picture of Washington's close cooperation with the regime of Libya's former dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. handed over to Libya the Islamist opponents of Gadhafi that it detained abroad with only thin "diplomatic assurances" that they would not be mistreated, and several of them were subsequently tortured in prison, Human Rights Watch said. 

The report features interviews by the New York-based group with 14 Libyan dissident exiles. They describe systematic abuses while they were held in U.S.-led detention centers in Afghanistan -- some for as long as two years -- or in U.S.-led interrogations in Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, Sudan and elsewhere before the Americans handed them over to Libya.

"Not only did the U.S. deliver his (Gadhafi's) enemies on a silver platter, but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first," said Laura Pitter, counterterrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. 

"The scope of Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged and underscores the importance of opening up a full-scale inquiry into what happened," she added. 

UK spies to face criminal inquiry over Libya

The documents, which were found in once-secret archives that became public during the Libyan revolution, included classified correspondence between top Libyan officials and officials from the CIA and Britain's spy agencies MI5 and MI6. 

They illustrate how, between late 2003 when Gadhafi agreed to give up his weapons of mass destruction programs, and the 2011 Libyan revolution, Gadhafi and Western intelligence agencies quietly cooperated in battling Islamic militants. 

Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning that President Barack Obama and human rights activists have condemned as torture. 

Britain, U.S. defend actions
U.S. and British officials defended their governments' actions. 

"It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats. That is exactly what we are expected to do," said Jennifer Youngblood, a CIA spokeswoman. 

"The context here is worth revisiting. For example, by 2004, the U.S. government had convinced Gadhafi to renounce Libya's WMD programs and to help stop those terrorists who were actively targeting Americans," Youngblood said. 

A spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office said: "The government has been clear that it stands firmly against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. We do not condone it, nor do we ask others to do it on our behalf. 

"In addition, we have published the Consolidated Guidance which provides clear directions for intelligence officers and service personnel dealing with foreign liaison services regarding detainees held overseas," the spokesman said. 

Slideshow: Moammar Gadhafi through the years 

Some of the other nations that Human Rights Watch alleged to be U.S. collaborators in these operations are the Netherlands, Pakistan, China, Malaysia, Morocco and Sudan. 

The most dramatic, and potentially controversial, of the report's 14 case studies relates to alleged waterboarding. 

Human Rights Watch said that testimony from former detainee Mohammed Shoroeiya about how he was allegedly waterboarded repeatedly by U.S. interrogators was "detailed and credible."

Shoroeiya claimed he had been waterboarded while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, and that a doctor was present during the interrogation sessions, the group said. 

It said that a second former Libyan detainee, Khalid al-Sharif, described how he was subjected to a "similar type of treatment," though this did not involve being strapped to a board. 

Libyan rebels find album filled with photos of his 'darling' Condoleezza Rice

Human Rights Watch said both detainees claimed that they were hooded and had ice water poured over their noses and mouths until they felt like they were suffocating -- the sensation associated with waterboarding. 

Claims contradict Bush, CIA
The accounts by the Libyan detainees, one-time members of a militant faction called the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group, contradict claims by former President George W. Bush, former CIA director Michael Hayden and other U.S. officials that waterboarding was only used on three militants in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks -- none of them Libyan. 

U.S. officials expressed skepticism about the waterboarding allegations. And there are apparent differences in how the Libyans describe their treatment and the waterboarding procedures used in three cases that U.S. authorities have confirmed -- those of alleged al-Qaida militants Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. 

In those cases, official investigations reported, the interrogation subjects were doused repeatedly, but in short bursts, with bottled water. 

Slideshow: Life goes on in Guantanamo

"The agency has been on the record that there are three substantiated cases in which detainees were subjected to the waterboarding technique," the CIA's Youngblood said. 

"Although we cannot comment on these specific allegations, the Department of Justice has exhaustively reviewed the treatment of more than 100 detainees in the post-9/11 period -- including allegations involving unauthorized interrogation techniques — and it declined prosecution in every case," she added. 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Ismail Zitouny / Reuters

Men prepare to bury the body of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi at a cemetery in Janzour, near Tripoli, on Monday.

NEW YORK -- The death of the only man convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has left some victims' relatives relieved and others raising questions about his guilt and whether others went unpunished.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence official, died Sunday of cancer, his family said. His death renewed pleas from some victims' relatives for further investigation of the bombing.

"It closes a chapter but it doesn't close the book. We know he wasn't the only person involved," Frank Dugan, president of the group Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, said from Alexandria, Va.

Al-Megrahi was convicted of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988. The bombing killed 270 people, including 189 Americans. Syracuse University in central New York was particularly hard hit: 35 students on the way home for Christmas break died in the bombing.

$2.7 billion in compensation
Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi handed over al-Megrahi and a second suspect to Scottish authorities after years of punishing U.N. sanctions. In 2003, Gadhafi acknowledged responsibility, though not guilt, for the bombing and paid compensation of about $2.7 billion to victims' families.

Some relatives attended al-Megrahi's trial in the Netherlands. When he was released to Libya from a Scottish prison in 2009 on humanitarian grounds — he was supposedly close to death — they were outraged when al-Megrahi returned to a hero's welcome from Gadhafi and then lived far longer than the few months the doctors had predicted.

Susan Cohen of Cape May Court House, N.J., whose daughter was among the Syracuse University students on the flight, said al-Megrahi deserved no compassion.

"The fact that he was able to get out and live with his family these past few years is an appalling miscarriage of justice. There was no excuse for that," Cohen said Sunday. "He should have died in the Scottish prison. He should have been tried in the United States and faced capital punishment."

The views of other victims' families on al-Megrahi's role in the bombing vary widely.

"Megrahi is the 271st victim of Lockerbie," said David Ben-Ayreah, who represents some British families of victims. He attended the trial and still believes al-Megrahi was not responsible for the bombing.

'Very happy'
But Eileen Walsh, a Glen Rock, N.J., resident whose father, brother and sister died in the explosion, said she was "very happy" to hear about al-Megrahi's death. She had just attended Mass on Sunday when she received numerous text messages.

"I'm glad he's gone, but there's no real closure. There's nothing but a bad taste in my mouth," she said.

"My mother died of cancer in 2004, and because of him, three of the most important people in her life weren't there to help her in her time of need," Walsh said.

Al-Megrahi was found guilty under Scottish law of secretly loading a suitcase bomb onto a plane at Malta's Luqa Airport, where he was head of operations for Libyan Arab Airlines in December 1988.

The suitcase was transferred at Frankfurt to another flight and then onto New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 at London's Heathrow airport, concluded Scottish judges sitting at a converted Dutch military base selected as a neutral trial venue.

Al-Megrahi, who was handed over by Gadhafi under a U.N.-brokered deal, always insisted he was merely an airline executive, not a Libyan intelligence agent as prosecutors charged.

Miscarriage of justice?
Al-Megrahi's co-defendant was acquitted of all charges. Al-Megrahi insisted he also had nothing to do with the bombing. Those who believed him got a boost in 2007 when a three-year investigation by a Scottish tribunal found that new evidence — and old evidence withheld from trial — suggested that al-Megrahi "may have suffered a miscarriage of justice." Its 800-page report prompted an appeal on al-Megrahi's behalf, but by then his fate was in the hands of politicians in London, Tripoli and Edinburgh, all of whom jockeyed for position as Libya rebuilt its ties with Britain and al-Megrahi's health deteriorated.

Still protesting his innocence, al-Megrahi dropped the appeal in a bid to clear the path for his release on compassionate grounds. 

Al-Megrahi's death should not be an excuse to stop trying to find out who was behind the bombing, Cohen said. She called on U.S. and British officials to "dig even deeper" into the case.

The Scottish government said Sunday that it will continue investigating the Lockerbie bombing.

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, visiting the United States on Sunday, said that al-Megrahi should never have been freed.

However, Britain's ITV News reported that Cameron dismissed calls for a new inquiry into al-Megrahi's conviction, saying the court case was "properly run and properly dealt with."

Read more coverage from Britain's ITV News

Bert Ammerman of River Vale, N.J., lost his brother in the bombing. He blames the U.S. and Britain for failing to track all leads in the case and noted that Gadhafi's former spy chief was arrested in March in Mauritania.

"He holds the key to what actually took place in Pan Am 103," Ammerman said. "He knows what other individuals were involved and, more importantly, what other countries were involved."

After Gadhafi's fall, Britain asked Libya's new rulers to help fully investigate but they put off any probe.

"Ironically, 24 years later, I now have more confidence in the new Libyan government than the British or American governments to find the truth because I believe Libya would like the truth to come out to show that they were not the only country involved," Ammerman said.

Jim Swire, whose 19-year-old daughter, Flora, died in the bombing, is a leading voice for some of the British families who believe al-Megrahi was innocent. Swire, who attended the trial in the Netherlands, asked for further inquiry from the Scottish government.

''I've been satisfied for some years that this man had nothing to do with the murder of my daughter and I grit my teeth every time I hear newscasters say 'Lockerbie bomber has died,'" Swire told the BBC on Sunday. ''This is a sad day."

'Smelled of a deal for oil'
Al-Megrahi's brother Mohammed told Reuters that a funeral would take place on Monday.

"My brother was surrounded by his wife, children and his mother as he took his last breath. He was too sick to utter anything on his deathbed," his brother Abdulhakim added. "We will always tell the world that my brother was innocent."

Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who wanted the Libyan government that took over after Gadhafi's ouster and killing by rebels to take al-Megrahi into custody, said his return to Libya was a major injustice.

"The whole deal smelled of a deal for oil for this man's freedom and that was almost blasphemy given what a horrible person he was and the terrible destruction and tragedy that he caused," Schumer said. "I don't know if we'll ever get to the bottom of it now."

Msnbc.com staff, ITV News, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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