|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
|
January 11th,
2010 - Lawyer: Feds Chose Torture Over Trial for Detainee |
|
Lawyer: Feds Chose Torture Over
Trial for Detainee By Larry Neumeister Associated Press January 11, 2010 New York - A lawyer asked a
judge Monday to toss out charges against the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to
be brought to civilian courts, saying he was tortured for 14 hours over five
days and denied trial for nearly five years. Attorney Peter Enrique
Quijano told U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani's
right to a speedy trial was violated when he was sent after his July 2004
arrest to a secret CIA-run interrogation camp abroad rather than to the U.S.
for a civilian trial. After two hours of
arguments, the judge reserved decision. At the time of his arrest in
Pakistan, Ghailani was a fugitive, already indicted in federal court in
Manhattan in the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. The
bombings killed 225 people, including a dozen Americans. Rulings in Ghailani's case
could set precedents affecting the New York prosecution of Khalid Sheik
Mohammed, accused of being the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks. Attorney General Eric Holder announced in November his intention to
move Mohammed and four other detainees from Guantanamo Bay to New York to
face a civilian trial. Quijano seemed to be
revealing information that the government had tried to keep secret when he
said that Ghailani was subjected to enhanced interrogation for 14 hours over
five days. The comment prompted
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz to rush to Quijano's side and the
defense lawyer to try to withdraw the comment. The judge said it was too late
as he glanced at reporters. Specifics about Quijano's
treatment by his CIA interrogators in the weeks after his arrest have been
redacted from court papers filed before the oral arguments. In court papers, prosecutors
said the government decided to treat Ghailani as an intelligence asset
because of his close relationship to high-ranking al-Qaida leaders and
because he had "information that was both urgent and crucial to our
nation's war efforts." Ghailani has described by
authorities as a bomb maker, document forger and aide to Osama bin Laden, who
is also indicted in the embassy bombings case. The "United States
justifiably opted to initially treat the defendant as an intelligence asset -
to obtain from him whatever information it could concerning terrorists and
terrorist plots," prosecutors said. "This was done, simply put, to
save lives." Repeatedly, Quijano referred
to harsh treatment of his client, saying that for several months after his
arrest "he literally didn't know whether the next morning he would just
be taken out and shot." Before scaling back its
enhanced interrogation program, the CIA used 10 harsh methods, including
waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. Ghailani complained about
his treatment last February, saying he'd been deprived of his liberty and
"denied access to the outside world." "I have been a victim
of the 'cruel enhanced interrogation' techniques, never afforded the right to
remain silent nor the right to have an attorney," he wrote in a petition
seeking freedom. Quijano said the U.S.
government had the right to treat Ghailani as an intelligence asset for two
years before he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay as an enemy combatant, but
that there were Constitutional consequences for making such a "political
decision." "A state of war does
not give the president a blank check when it comes to Constitutional
rights," he said. Farbiarz agreed that the
Constitution does not "get put on a shelf" during extraordinary
times and that a speedy trial is a fundamental right, but he said legal
decisions in previous cases make it clear that the delay in bringing Ghailani
to trial was justified and reasonable. "The delay is valid
when its purpose is not to hinder the defense," he said. Copyright 2009 Associated
Press. External link: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/01/11/general-us-guantanamo-detainee_7265663.html |