Tag: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

In addition to the CIA's Inspector General report (pdf) released today, the CIA and Justice Department finally released documents in the ongoing FOIA litigation with the Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International and other organizations over ghost detainees. (Background here.)

The first is a 2005 CIA report entitled Detainee Reporting Pivotal in War Against Al-Qa'ida. The second is a 2004 report, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, Preeminient Source Against Al-Qa'ida.

These are the documents Dick Cheney said would support a case for torture. [More...]

The Inspector General's 2004 Report is out and available here (pdf). Hightlights are here. (According to the AP, the correct spelling is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.)

One thing that leapt out at me was Paragraph 95 on page 43: Interrogators threatened to kill Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's children. Then there's a blacked out portion, followed by a statement that the interrogator reporting this did not believe the threat violated the law.

Do the blacked out lines refer to what they did to convince Khalid Shaikh Mohammed they could carry out the threat? In March, 2003, I wrote about the CIA's acknowledgement it had taken custody of Mohammed's sons from Pakistan to use them as leverage to get their father to talk: [More...]

U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina last month ordered the Government to provide Guantanamo inmate and habeas petitioner Abdul Raheem Ghulam Rabbani, who allegedly worked for accused 911 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with some of the discovery he requested about his interrogation in overseas prisons.

Judge Urbina also ruled that Rabbani can submit written questions to KSM. The declassified and redacted opinion has now been released. It's a long opinion, here are some of the more notable parts:[More...]

Update: AP article here. They made their decision based on Obama's election to the Presidency. My translation: They don't want to be moved to federal court where they would be more likely to get life in a Supermax prison than the death penalty, and if they got the death penalty, face years in prison before it was carried out.

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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees facing the death penalty in military commission trials decided today to plead guilty. Human Rights Watch responds:

"What should have been a major victory in holding the 9/11 defendants accountable for terrible crimes has been tainted by torture and an unfair military commissions process," said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. "These five men are known to have been mistreated and tortured during their years in CIA custody, including the acknowledged waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."

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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed this week took the lead for himself and four other accused terrorists during pre-trial hearings in their military commissions proceeding.

Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali are charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to kill civilians in the September 11 attacks. All face the death penalty. While blasting the procedures as an "inquisition" and requesting recusal of the judge, Mohammed also offered to try and convince Ramzi Binalshibh to come out of his cell voluntarily and attend the proceedings. [More...]

Meet Deuce Martinez. Career narcotics agent turned Five-Star CIA interrogator. Credited with getting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh to talk.

Waterboarding, belly slaps, sleep deprivation and more. Martinez didn't like getting his hands dirty with the physical abuse, he waited in the wings while others did it and then conducted the interrogations. If the detainee stopped cooperating, it was back to the torture, then back to Martinez. Ultimately, they talked. The value of their information? The CIA says huge, even accounting for the misinformation they were fed. Of course, there's no way to test that theory.

Where did this all occur? Inside the CIA's black hole of choice -- in Poland. [More...]

At his arraignment today, Khalid Sheik Mohammed sang in court, praised Allah and said he welcomed the death penalty so he would be a martyr.

He has rejected his attorneys and says he wants to represent himself.

My shield is Allah most high," he said, adding that his religion forbade him from accepting a lawyer from the United States and that he wanted to act as his own attorney .

Shades of Zacarias Moussaoui, who having been tried in federal court, is now serving life at Supermax. Moussaoui has a chance to appeal. If Mohammed stays on this course, he'll be dead. [Update below]

Alleged "9/11 Mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is being arraigned today at Guantanamo. The ACLU is on scene and will be reporting.

The ACLU has committed $15 million to a joint project with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to provide adequate representation to Mohammed and other Gitmo detainees facing unfair trials under the Military Commissions Act.

Trial by military commission permit convictions based on secret evidence, hearsay, and evidence derived from torture – including waterboarding, a technique the government admits was used on Mohammed. [More...]

Jane Mayer in The New Yorker Magazine today exposes the torturous interrogation practices the C.I.A. used on its prize detainee, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, during his not-so secret stay in an overseas prison.

Author Jane Mayer, on the CBS Evening News, said:

"The Red Cross went in and got to interview these people for the first time," said Mayer on the CBS Evening News. "What these people described was hanging from the ceilings by their arms and being water-boarded, partially drowned, put on leashes and knocked into walls and basically deprived of all kinds of sensory imagery for years."

The article also puts the lie to President Bush's continuous insistence that the U.S. does not engage in torture.

Mayer's article further described the CIA program of physical and psychological abuse as completely regimented and deliberate.

"There have always been mistakes made in the past when prisoners have been abused in wars," Mayer told Mitchell. "But this is the first time it's been done on purpose."

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