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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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August 17th,
2010 - Terrorist Interrogation Tapes Found |
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Terrorist Interrogation Tapes
Found By Adam Goldman & Matt Apuzzo Associated Press August 17, 2010 Washington - The CIA has
videotapes, after all, of interrogations in a secret overseas prison of
admitted 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh. Discovered in a box under a
desk at the CIA, the tapes could reveal how foreign governments aided the
United States in holding and interrogating suspects. And they could
complicate U.S. efforts to prosecute Binalshibh, who has been described as
one of the "key plot facilitators" in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Apparently the tapes do not
show harsh treatment - unlike videos the agency destroyed of the questioning
of other suspected terrorists. The two videotapes and one
audiotape are believed to be the only existing recordings made within the
clandestine prison system and could offer a revealing glimpse into a
four-year global odyssey that ranged from Pakistan to Romania to Guantanamo
Bay. The tapes depict
Binalshibh's interrogation sessions in 2002 at a Moroccan-run facility the
CIA used near Rabat, several current and former U.S. officials told The
Associated Press. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the videos
remain a closely guarded secret. When the CIA destroyed its
cache of 92 videos of two other al-Qaida operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd
al-Nashiri, being waterboarded in 2005, officials believed they had wiped
away all of the agency's interrogation footage. But in 2007, a staff member
discovered a box tucked under a desk in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and
pulled out the Binalshibh tapes. If the tapes surfaced at
Binalshibh's trial, they could highlight Morocco's role in a counterterrorism
program known as Greystone, which authorized the CIA to hold terrorists in
secret prisons and shuttle them to other countries. The American Civil Liberties
Union has asked the government to provide more information about the tapes as
part of a long-running lawsuit involving the treatment of detainees. "Today's report is a
stark reminder of how much information the government is still withholding
about the Bush administration's interrogation policies," said Alexander
Abdo, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. More significantly to the
38-year-old terror suspect's defense, the tapes also could provide evidence
of Binalshibh's mental state within the first months of his capture. In court
documents, defense lawyers have been asking for medical records to see
whether his years in CIA custody made him mentally unstable. He is being
treated for schizophrenia with a potent cocktail of anti-psychotic
medications. With military trial
commissions on hold while the Obama administration figures out what to do
with a number of terror suspects, Binalshibh has never had a hearing on
whether he is mentally fit to stand trial. "If those tapes exist,
they would be extremely relevant," said Thomas A. Durkin, Binalshibh's
civilian lawyer. A Justice Department
prosecutor who is already investigating whether destroying the Zubaydah and
al-Nashiri tapes was illegal is now also looking into why the Binalshibh
tapes were not disclosed. The CIA first publicly
hinted at the existence of the tapes in 2007 in a letter to U.S. District
Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in Virginia. The government twice denied having such
tapes, recanting once they were discovered. But the government blacked out
Binalshibh's name from a public copy of the letter. At the time, the CIA played
down the significance of the videos, saying they were not taken as part of
the agency's detention program and did not show CIA interrogations. But that case can be made
only because of the unusual nature of the Moroccan prison, which was largely
financed by the CIA but run by Moroccans, the former officials said. The CIA
could move detainees in and out, and oversee the interrogations, but
officially Morocco had control. Moroccan government
officials did not respond to queries seeking comment on Binalshibh and his
time in Morocco. The country has never acknowledged the existence of the
detention center. Morocco has a history of
prison abuse and human rights violations. A Moroccan-created commission
identified decades of torture, forced disappearances, poor prison conditions
and sexual violence. This year's U.S. State Department report on Morocco
notes continued accusations of torture by security forces. Still, current and former
officials say no harsh interrogation methods, like the simulated drowning
tactic called waterboarding, were used in Morocco. In the CIA's secret
network of undisclosed "black prisons," Morocco was described as a
way station to hold detainees for a few months at a time. "The tapes record a guy
sitting in a room just answering questions," according to a U.S.
official familiar with the program. "They don't show any harsh
treatment." That would make them quite
different from the 92 interrogation videos of Zubaydah and al-Nashiri being
subjected to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics. The tapes provide just a
snapshot of Binalshibh's journey through CIA black prisons. He was bounced
from one undisclosed facility to the next and his story, if it ever comes out
at trial, could reveal new details about the CIA prison network. Defense
attorneys have described this journey as "a blot on this nation's
character." Intelligence officials
maintain the tough tactics saved many lives. CIA spokesman George Little
said: "While we continue to cooperate with inquiries into past
counterterrorism practices, the CIA's focus now is exactly where it should
be: protecting the American people now and into the future." Binalshibh belonged to the
al-Qaida cell in Hamburg, Germany, that hatched the 9/11 plot. He roomed with
Mohammed Atta, who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade
Center. Binalshibh tried repeatedly to get a U.S. visa but never succeeded. The CIA swept him up exactly
one year later in Karachi, Pakistan. He was captured with other members of
al-Qaida and the young sons of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who
one former official said had been placed in Binalshibh's care. Almost immediately, two
former CIA officials said, Binalshibh exhibited traces of mental instability
that would worsen over time. But others suggest his prolonged detention
contributed to that deterioration. Binalshibh's first stop
after his capture was Afghanistan. Shackled and hooded, he was flown on a
military plane with a joint CIA-FBI team from Karachi to Bagram. At a spartan
CIA facility not far from Bagram, he was manacled to the ceiling and
subjected to blaring hard rock music around the clock, according to FBI
documents. When FBI agents finally had
a chance to interview Binalshibh, they found him lethargic but physically
unharmed. He projected an attitude suggesting he was unconcerned he had been
caught. Before the FBI made any real
headway, the CIA flew Binalshibh on Sept. 17, 2002, to Morocco on a
Gulfstream jet, according to flight records and interviews. Current and former officials
said this was the period when Binalshibh was taped. His revelations remain
classified but the recordings, the officials said, made no mention of the
9/11 plot. It's unclear who made the tapes or how they got to the agency's
Langley, Va., headquarters. In March 2003, Binalshibh
was moved to a Polish facility code-named Quartz soon after his mentor,
Mohammed, was nabbed in Pakistan. The CIA intentionally paraded Binalshibh
past Mohammed. With the two in the same facility, interrogators could quickly
check out their stories. Considered uncooperative by
his captors, Binalshibh was put on a liquid diet and subjected to a series of
enhanced interrogation techniques, former CIA officials said. The CIA officials discussed
waterboarding him but decided against it. Mohammed endured the harsh
technique scores of times. Binalshibh's interviews
became the foundation for parts of the 9/11 commission report, and he
provided intelligence about a plot to crash aircraft into London's Heathrow
Airport and Canary Wharf, the city's financial center, an official said. The
commission report described him and two other men as "key plot
facilitators." With his intelligence value
plumbed, Binalshibh was moved with al-Nashiri back to Rabat on June 6, 2003.
In September 2003, Binalshibh and at least three other high-value terrorists
were secretly flown to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to prepare for a
possible military trial. But they were all taken back to Morocco that spring
before the U.S. Supreme Court could grant them access to lawyers. Back in Rabat, one former
official said, Binalshibh put on weight eating the country's
carbohydrate-heavy cuisine of couscous and chicken tagine. From there it was on to
Bucharest, Romania, in fall 2004. The facility consisted of six cells, each
with a clock and arrow pointing to Mecca. Five other detainees were also
housed there, including Mohammed and al-Nashiri. Binalshibh didn't surface
publicly until September 2006, when President George W. Bush announced that
he and 13 other top terrorist detainees were being transferred to Guantanamo.
The move came after the last remaining secret sites in Romania and Lithuania
were closed. Since his move to
Guantanamo, Binalshibh has appeared increasingly erratic. Court records say
he has broken cameras in his cell and smeared them with feces. He has experienced delusions,
complaining the CIA was intentionally shaking his bed and cell, according to
court records and interviews. He imagined tingling sensations, suspecting
things were crawling all over him, and developed a nervous tic, obsessively
scratching himself. Nine years after his
capture, there is no indication when Binalshibh and other admitted 9/11
terrorists will face military or civilian trials. While the tapes could have a
bearing on any trial in the future, Binalshibh and other accused 9/11
conspirators have openly admitted their roles, praising the attacks. Binalshibh and the others
have asked to plead guilty, a move that would head off any trial and almost
certainly guarantee the videotapes never get played in any court. © 2010 The Associated Press External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/17/AR2010081704168.html |