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Guantánamo prisoner charges confession extracted through torture
A Guantánamo detainee has charged that he was tortured into confessing to a role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, 41, a Saudi national of Yemeni descent, said he faced years of torture following his arrest in 2002 and that he fabricated stories to satisfy his captors.
Al-Nashiri was one of 14 detainees moved by the US to the Guantánamo prison camp last September. These 14 “high-value” detainees were transferred following the exposure of a network of CIA-run secret prisons around the world and the Bush administration’s acknowledgement of the prisons’ existence.
Military hearings are currently underway at Guantánamo to determine these prisoners’ “enemy combatant” status. Once this is confirmed, they can be held indefinitely before being brought before a military commission, which would have the power to condemn them to death.
The Pentagon released a redacted transcript of testimony given by al-Nashiri at a closed-door hearing held March 14 at Guantánamo. His charges of torture underscore the illegal character of the detention of the Guantánamo prisoners and the thoroughly antidemocratic character of the military hearings, which deny defendants the rudiments of due process. Al-Nashiri’s statements also demonstrate that the purported confessions extracted from prisoners held for months on end—without charges, without legal counsel and without contact with the outside world—are, from a legitimate legal standpoint, worthless.
“From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me,” al-Nashiri testified at the hearing. “It happened during interviews. One time they tortured me one way, and another time they tortured me in a different way.
“I just said those things to make the people happy,” the transcript reads. “They were very happy when I told them those things.”
According to US intelligence, al-Nashiri is the “mastermind” of the October 12, 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which left 17 US sailors dead and almost succeeded in sinking the $1 billion destroyer.
The US alleges that he was the leader of Al Qaeda’s operations in the Persian Gulf at the time and was tasked by Osama bin Laden to organize the attack. In the transcript provided by the Pentagon, al-Nashiri says he met with the Al Qaeda leader numerous times and received as much as a half-million dollars from him. He says the money was for “personal expenses,” including purchasing a boat and developing a fishing business.
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http://wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/tort-m31.shtml
Military hearings are currently underway at Guantánamo to determine these prisoners’ “enemy combatant” status. Once this is confirmed, they can be held indefinitely before being brought before a military commission, which would have the power to condemn them to death.
The Pentagon released a redacted transcript of testimony given by al-Nashiri at a closed-door hearing held March 14 at Guantánamo. His charges of torture underscore the illegal character of the detention of the Guantánamo prisoners and the thoroughly antidemocratic character of the military hearings, which deny defendants the rudiments of due process. Al-Nashiri’s statements also demonstrate that the purported confessions extracted from prisoners held for months on end—without charges, without legal counsel and without contact with the outside world—are, from a legitimate legal standpoint, worthless.
“From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me,” al-Nashiri testified at the hearing. “It happened during interviews. One time they tortured me one way, and another time they tortured me in a different way.
“I just said those things to make the people happy,” the transcript reads. “They were very happy when I told them those things.”
According to US intelligence, al-Nashiri is the “mastermind” of the October 12, 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which left 17 US sailors dead and almost succeeded in sinking the $1 billion destroyer.
The US alleges that he was the leader of Al Qaeda’s operations in the Persian Gulf at the time and was tasked by Osama bin Laden to organize the attack. In the transcript provided by the Pentagon, al-Nashiri says he met with the Al Qaeda leader numerous times and received as much as a half-million dollars from him. He says the money was for “personal expenses,” including purchasing a boat and developing a fishing business.
More
http://wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/tort-m31.shtml
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CAIRO — A Guantanamo detainee accused American captors of torturing and coercing him into making false confessions about carrying out terrorist attacks against US targets, The Washington Post reported on Saturday, March 31, citing newly released Pentagon transcripts of a military tribunal hearing.
"The detainee states that he was tortured into confession and once he made a confession his captors were happy and they stopped torturing him," Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri's representative was quoted as saying in a censored transcript of the March 14 closed-door hearing.
"Also, the detainee states that he made up stories during the torture in order to get it to stop," the officer said.
The US accuses Nashiri of being the Al-Qaeda operations chief in the Gulf.
It says the Saudi-born was involved in the bombings of two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, which claimed 224 lives.
Washington also accuses Nashiri of masterminding the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, which killed 17.
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"The detainee states that he was tortured into confession and once he made a confession his captors were happy and they stopped torturing him," Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri's representative was quoted as saying in a censored transcript of the March 14 closed-door hearing.
"Also, the detainee states that he made up stories during the torture in order to get it to stop," the officer said.
The US accuses Nashiri of being the Al-Qaeda operations chief in the Gulf.
It says the Saudi-born was involved in the bombings of two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, which claimed 224 lives.
Washington also accuses Nashiri of masterminding the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, which killed 17.
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