tagged w/ Military Trials
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AP Exclusive: Under desk, CIA found video of 9/11 plotter being interrogated in secret prison
ADAM GOLDMAN, MATT APUZZO Associated Press Writers
August 17, 2010|12:45 a.m.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA has tapes of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh being interrogated in a secret overseas prison. Discovered under a desk, the recordings could provide an unparalleled look at how foreign governments aided the U.S. in holding and questioning suspected terrorists.
The two videotapes and one audiotape are believed to be the only remaining recordings made within the clandestine prison system.
The tapes depict Binalshibh's interrogation sessions at a Moroccan-run facility the CIA used near Rabat in 2002, several current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the recordings 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 staffer discovered a box tucked under a desk in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and pulled out the Binalshibh tapes.
A Justice Department prosecutor who is already investigating whether destroying the Zubaydah and al-Nashiri tapes was illegal is now also probing why the Binalshibh tapes were never disclosed. Twice, the government told a federal judge they did not exist.
The tapes could complicate U.S. efforts to prosecute Binalshibh, 38, who has been described as a "key facilitator" in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. If the tapes surfaced at trial, they could clearly reveal Morocco's role in the counterterrorism program known as Greystone, which authorized the CIA to hold terrorists in secret prisons and shuttle them to other countries.
More significantly to his 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 Binalshibh's years in CIA custody made him mentally unstable. He is being treated for schizophrenia with a potent cocktail of anti-psychotic medications.
With military commissions on hold while the Obama administration figures out what to do with suspected terrorists, 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.
The CIA first publicly hinted at the existence of the Binalshibh tapes in 2007 in a letter to U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in Virginia. The government twice denied having such tapes, and recanted 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, saying the videos were not taken as part of the CIA's detention program and did not show CIA interrogations.
That's true, but 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.
CIA spokesman George Little would not discuss the Moroccan facility except to say agency officials "continue to cooperate with inquiries into past counterterrorism practices."
Moroccan government officials did not respond to questions about Binalshibh and his time in Morocco. The country has never acknowledged the existence of the detention center.
Morocco has a troubled history of prison abuse and human rights violations. A government-created commission identified decades of torture, forced disappearances, poor prison conditions and sexual violence. And this year's State Department report on Morocco notes continued accusations of torture by security forces.
But current and former U.S. 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 just way station of sorts, a place 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.
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.
Binalshibh was captured Sept. 11, 2002, and interrogated for days at a CIA facility in Afghanistan. Almost immediately, two former CIA officials said, Binalshibh exhibited mental instability that would worsen over time.
When FBI agents finally had a chance to interview Binalshibh, they found him lethargic but unharmed.
"He had a certain toughness about him, like he didn't care," said Raymond Holcomb, a retired FBI agent who spent five days alongside the CIA with Binalshibh in Afghanistan and wrote about it in a forthcoming book, "Endless Enemies: Inside FBI Counterterrorism."
Though Binalshibh was uncooperative during his early interrogations, his interviews formed the foundation for parts of the 9/11 commission report. One official said he also provided intelligence about a plot to crash aircraft into London's Heathrow Airport.
Binalshibh spent five months in Morocco in late 2002 and early 2003, the first of three trips through the facility during his years in CIA custody.
Since his incarceration was established at Guantanamo Bay in 2006, Binalshibh has appeared increasingly erratic. Court records show him acting out, breaking cameras in his cell and smearing them with feces.
He has experienced delusions, believing the CIA was intentionally shaking his bed and cell, according to court records and interviews. He has imagined tingling sensations like 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.
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.
http://www.gotgeoint.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/9-113.bmpAP Exclusive: Under desk, CIA found video of 9/11 plotter being interrogated in secret... more
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A coalition of major news organizations is challenging as unconstitutional Pentagon rules that were used in May to ban four reporters from covering military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.A coalition of major news organizations is challenging as unconstitutional Pentagon... more
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The American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, and numerous other legal organizations are demanding that the Senate Armed Services Committee reject a provision in a House of Representatives bill that would mandate an investigation into lawyers representing Guantanamo Bay detainees.The American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, and numerous other... more
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A former interrogator at the US prison in Bagram, Afghanistan said in court testimony that he and other interrogators would terrify detainees into confessing by threatening them with dying from multiple gang rape "by four big black guys" who would catch little Afghan boys in the shower of a U.S. prison.A former interrogator at the US prison in Bagram, Afghanistan said in court testimony... more
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"VILSECK, Germany - A U.S. soldier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder and was sentenced to seven months in prison Thursday in the deaths of four Iraqis, saying he stood guard from a machine-gun turret while the bound and blindfolded prisoners were shot.
The relatively lenient sentence for Spc. Belmor Ramos was part of a deal that will see him testify against the others accused in the killings last year. The four Iraqi men were killed and dumped in a Baghdad canal in April 2007 — allegedly in retribution for casualties in Ramos' unit.
Ramos, 23, had faced a possible sentence of life in prison for conspiracy to commit murder.
"VILSECK, Germany - A U.S. soldier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder and was... more
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Hamdan Receives Credit for Time Served, Could Be Released in 5 Months
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Aug. 7 -- A former driver for Osama bin Laden was sentenced today to 5 ½ years in prison for his material support for terrorism, a relatively light sentence that means the first detainee at Guantanamo Bay to face a full military commission trial could be released from custody in just five months.
The six military officers who found Salim Ahmed Hamdan guilty of terror charges yesterday came back with the sentence this afternoon, knowing that the judge in the case was going to give Hamdan credit for the five years and one month of his pre-trial incarceration at Guantanamo.
Hamdan, whose case at one point reached the Supreme Court and forced the U.S. government to retool its trial system for alleged terrorists held at Guantanamo, received the first verdict under a full military commission and arguably both won and lost. He was convicted of supporting al-Qaeda by driving and guarding bin Laden and ferrying weapons for the terror group, but he was acquitted of charges alleging terror conspiracy and escaped a potential life sentence.
It is unclear what will happen to Hamdan after he finishes serving his remaining time, because military prosecutors and military commissions officials have argued they have the ability to hold enemy combatants indefinitely, until the end of hostilities in the so-called war on terror. While the Bush administration could order him held, officials could also transfer him to the custody of his home country, Yemen, or release him outright.
At the sentencing hearing, Hamdan had pleaded for a light sentence and apologized to U.S. victims of terrorist attacks. "It was a sorry or sad thing to see innocent people killed," Hamdan was quoted as saying.
"I personally present my apologies to them if anything what I did have caused them pain."
He admitted that he kept working for the al-Qaeda leader even after he learned that bin Laden had planned terrorist attacks.
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Much more at link.
Interesting conclusion, to say the least, and a surprisingly fair verdict, all things considered.Hamdan Receives Credit for Time Served, Could Be Released in 5 Months
GUANTANAMO... more
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