CIA torture allegations continue to be a stumbling block in 9/11 trial

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GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba As the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks looms and more than 15 years have passed since suspected mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others were sent to Guantanamo Bay, delays continue to hamper efforts to put men on trial, with torture at the forefront.

In the 20 years since 19 Al Qaeda terrorists crashed hijacked planes into World Trade Center buildings, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pa., Killing nearly 3,000 people, the five men suspected of being responsible for the planning and execution of the plot have not yet been tried by the specialized insular war tribunal. Key questions of whether confessions obtained by the FBI after their CIA detention should be admissible, and whether the United States was really at war with al-Qaeda prior to September 11, remain unresolved.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, nicknamed KSM “and described as the main architect of the September 11 attacks, was a close ally of Osama bin Laden and was repeatedly subjected to waterboarding while in detention in the United States. KSM is on trial in a death penalty case alongside four co-defendants: his nephew, Ammar Baluchi, who sent money transfers to hijackers inside the United States; the alleged hijacking coach of planes Walid bin Attash; 9/11 facilitator Ramzi bin Shibh; and Al Qaeda money man Mustafa Hawsawi. The men were subjected to various technical interrogations such as stress positions, deprivation of sleep, bouncing inmates off walls, slapping them in the face, etc.

Defense teams seek to reject confessions the five men made to FBI “clean teams” at Guantanamo Bay after being subjected to these enhanced interrogation techniques “, considered by many to be torture, at the black sites of the CIA.

Jay Connell, the death penalty defense attorney for KSM’s nephew, spoke to the press on Sunday at a motel in Guantanamo Bay.

Don’t make mistakes. The cover-up of torture is the reason these men were taken to Guantanamo and the continued cover-up of torture is the reason that indefinite detention at Guantanamo still exists, ”Connell said. “The cover-up of torture is also why we all gathered at Guantanamo for the 42nd September 11 Military Commission hearing on the 15th anniversary of the transfer of these men to Guantanamo.

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David Bruck, a lawyer for Shibh, claimed that his client still felt intense painful vibrations focused on particular parts of his body and claimed that it was as if the torture program for him never ended.

KSM IS STILL WAITING FOR A TRIAL AFTER 15 YEARS AT GITMO

When he announced that KSM and his co-defendants had been sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2006, President George W. Bush argued that the program had been the subject of several legal reviews by the Department of Justice and attorneys. the CIA and added, I want to be absolutely clear with our people and the world: the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values. I did not authorize it and I will not authorize it.

The 9/11 case has been repeatedly delayed following unfavorable Supreme Court rulings under Bush and a failed effort by former President Barack Obama to try the men in federal court in New York. After several military commissions scuttled, many retired judges, battles over classified information and accusations of torture, the death penalty trial was set for 2021, but COVID-19 has turned that upside down, and with a new judge as of this week, it’s not clear where things stand now.

A clash over the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program, which the Democratic majority called torture, took center stage throughout the final hearing in early 2020 Dr James Mitchell, a psychologist who helped design interrogation techniques for the CIA in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, he spent much of his testimony defending his actions as legal and claiming that he had helped stop future attacks.

But defense attorneys for five alleged 9/11 plotters disagreed, repeatedly pointing to the 2014 Senate report which concluded that the CIA’s rationale for using its improved interrogation techniques lay on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness. The then chair of the committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, said that in the common sense, CIA detainees were being tortured.

Mitchell, a former Air Force Survival School psychologist, helped develop interrogation techniques from the military program of Survival, Escape, Resistance, and Escape. The psychologist personally used the simulated drowning technique against KSM in 15 sessions, using at least 183 water flows in March 2003.

Mitchell testified that his goal was not just to get KSM to admit past attacks, but rather to stop this second wave of attacks he had planned with Hambali that was real and that we stopped.

Riduan Isamuddin, aka Hambali, was the leader of the Southeast Asian terror group linked to al-Qaeda Jemaah Islamiyah, which carried out the deadly bombing of a nightclub in Bali in 2002, killing 202 people. US government alleges Hambali was part of second wave plot to launch follow-up attacks inside US

The summary of the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee Report concluded that the CIA did not adequately assess the effectiveness of its improved interrogation techniques.

The Republicans on the committee, led by Florida Senator Marco Rubio and others, issued a response challenging the majority’s findings.

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Former CIA directors George Tenet, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden wrote a joint Wall Street Journal editorial claiming that the interrogation program led to the capture of senior Al Qaeda officials, foiled terrorist plots and constituted an essential part of the foundation from which the CIA and the US military mounted Operation Bin Laden.

Connell also argued that his client had not committed a war crime and added: The government says its position for his entire guilt case is based on the idea that Osama bin Laden had power. the president of a country or the legislature of a country. declare war in 1996.

Alka Pradhan, another lawyer for Baluchi, also said that “hearing senior members of the military say that a suspected terrorist can declare war on the United States of America is shocking because it violates all existing laws She said she felt absolutely devouring rage about the whole process and called it an obvious farce.

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Tags: News, Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, 9/11

Original author: Jerry Dunleavy

Original location: CIA torture allegations continue to be a stumbling block in 9/11 trial

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