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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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October 6th,
2009 - Detainee’s Lawyers to Get Interrogation Tapes |
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Detainee’s
Lawyers to Get Interrogation Tapes By Del Quentin Wilber & Julie Tate Washington Post October 6, 2009 A federal judge on Monday
disclosed the existence of videotapes that may reveal potentially abusive
interrogations of a Guantanamo Bay detainee, and ordered the government to
provide copies of the tapes to the man's lawyers. Lawyers for the detainee,
Mohammed al-Qahtani, say they think the tapes will show that their client
made incriminating statements only because he was tortured. A top Bush administration
official, Susan J. Crawford, conceded in January that Qahtani, 30, had been
subjected to techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation,
nudity and prolonged exposure to cold. She said at the time that
such treatment, which took place in late 2002 and early 2003 at the U.S.
military prison in Cuba, placed Qahtani in a "life threatening
situation." "We tortured"
Qahtani, Crawford said at the time. She said she would not allow his
military-commission trial to go forward. The detainee's attorneys,
who work for the nonprofit group Center for Constitutional Rights, are
challenging the prisoner's confinement in a federal lawsuit. The government alleges that
Qahtani, a Saudi, planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but
was denied entry to the United States in August of that year. Authorities are
justifying Qahtani's continued confinement based on incriminating statements
he made after the abusive interrogations stopped. Qahtani's lawyers say the
tapes, which document an earlier interrogation period, will shed light on why
their client later confessed to being sent to the United States by the
mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. He now denies those
allegations, his lawyers say. "Once the abuse and
torture started, any subsequent statements he made were tainted by the
earlier torture, the damage it caused and the fear of further torture,"
said one of his lawyers, Gitanjali S. Gutierrez. Gutierrez was seeking all
videotapes made by the military starting in August 2002. In her order, U.S.
District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer said the government had to turn over
videotapes documenting interrogations that took place between Nov. 15 and
Nov. 22. That is just before the military began keeping written records of
the detainee's interrogations. A Justice Department
spokesman said the government was reviewing the order. © 2009 The Washington Post
Company External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/05/AR2009100503382.html |