Westlife music was reportedly used as part of a CIA torture programme

Details of an extreme torture method allegedly used by the CIA were released yesterday, and strangely an Irish boyband feature.

Two psychologists have been sued by the American Civil Liberties Union over claims they helped the CIA to design a programme used to torture prisoners in Afghanistan in 2003.

As part of the programme, prisoners were reportedly subjected to music played at full blast – namely the Westlife song My Love interspersed with heavy metal music.

The music was "played on repeat at ear-splitting volume" in a pitch dark cell, and was only stopped when the CD skipped or needed changing.

Details in the case come from testimony by Tanzanian fisherman Suleiman Abdullah, who says he was held in three different prisons in Afghanistan by the CIA between 2003 and 2008.

As well as physical torture, he was kept in a cell where the music "pounded constantly" for 24 hours a day.

The ACLU claims it was the CIA's goal to "break his mind" to make him cooperate with his interrogators.

The alleged creators of the programme are former US military psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, both apparently contracted by the CIA to help develop interrogation operations.