9/11 plotter’s counsel can’t know how CIA treated him
A Pentagon appointed defense attorney’s request for specific information about the CIA interrogations of her client, Ramzi bin al Shibh, an alleged co-conspirator of the US attacks on 9/11, was recently rejected by a military judge.
The Miami Herald reports:
Bin al Shibh, 37, is one of five men charged in a complex death penalty prosecution by military commission currently under review by the Obama administration. He allegedly helped organize the Hamburg, Germany, cell of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers before the suicide mission that killed 2,974 people in New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.
But his lawyers say he suffers a “delusional disorder,” and hallucinations in his cell at Guantánamo may leave him neither sane enough to act as his own attorney nor to stand trial. Prison camp doctors treat him with psychotropic drugs.
Army Col. Stephen Henley, the military judge on the case, has scheduled a competency hearing for mid-September.
Meantime, the judge ruled on Aug. 6 that “evidence of specific techniques employed by various governmental agencies to interrogate the accused is . . . not essential to a fair resolution of the incompetence determination hearing in this case.” The Miami Herald obtained a copy of the ruling Monday.
Defense attorney Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier believes the interrogation method specifics are necessary to determine her client’s mental illness, and if there are methods available to make him competent to stand trial.
I reported in April on some of the revelations of the 2007 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report that also tells us that some of the interrogation methods used with Bin al Shibh were prolonged stress positions, being hosed with cold water, tied to a bed for up to a month and exposed to cold temperatures, forced shaving, and being denied solid food for periods of up to one month, and given only “Ensure” and water.
The ICRC report referred to the treatment of detainees as “inhuman.”
A recent Los Angeles Times report that claims US Attorney General Eric Holder is close to appointing a special prosecutor to look into ‘excessive or unauthorized’ interrogation methods also reveals that among interrogation cases that had not been previously disclosed is an “instance in which a CIA operative brought a gun into an interrogation booth to force a detainee to talk, officials said.”
Bin al Shibh’s attorney points out that “the judge could have ordered Bin al Shibh’s interrogation history sealed and only available to defense attorneys and others involved in the case with top-secret security clearances.”
Surely the staff at Guantanamo Bay aren’t treating Bin al Shibh with ‘psychotropic drugs’ for no reason at all.
Source: Raw Story
Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs
