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Terrorist's mistreatment decried by seven US military officials

By BELINDA ROBINSON in New York | China Daily Global | Updated: 2021-11-05 10:47
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A group of seven US military officials who heard graphic descriptions last week of the brutal treatment of a terrorist while in the custody of the CIA after 9/11 called his treatment by the agency "a source of shame for the US government".

The high-ranking senior officers, members of an eight-man jury at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, went to there to sentence Majid Khan, 41, a suburban Baltimore high school graduate who had earlier pleaded guilty to terrorism charges. They issued a sentence of 26 years.

Before sentencing, Khan spent two hours describing how he was tortured by CIA agents. The panel that listened to him submitted a scathing handwritten letter of urging clemency on his behalf to an official who will review the case.

In the letter, first obtained and detailed by The New York Times, they wrote: "Mr. Khan was subjected to physical and psychological abuse well beyond approved enhanced interrogation techniques, instead being closer to torture performed by the most abusive regimes in modern history."

"This abuse was of no practical value in terms of intelligence, or any other tangible benefit to US interests," the officers added. "Instead, it is a stain on the moral fiber of America; the treatment of Mr Khan in the hands of US personnel should be a source of shame for the US government."

Khan told how he was locked in prisons that resembled a dungeon, by CIA agents in Pakistan, Afghanistan and another country that wasn't named. He was isolated, subjected to sexual abuse and was stripped naked and shackled.

He said that he was first captured in March 2003 in Pakistan, after the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City, Virginia and Pennsylvania, which claimed 2,977 lives. He said he was repeatedly interrogated, beaten, abused and tortured.

In the months that followed 9/11, the CIA set up overseas regimes that harshly interrogated suspected terrorists to get information on al-Qaida so-called black sites.

Khan is the first of those held at a black site to talk about what he endured. At least 100 other suspected terrorists are believed to have been tortured.

President George W. Bush first revealed information about the CIA program Black Sites in 2006.

CIA officers used several "enhanced interrogation techniques'' including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and torture as part of the program to get information on al-Qaida's plans.

Khan said that he would give the agents intelligence, but the more he spoke, the more they beat him. He said he would then make up lies just to stop them from torturing him.

Khan first pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in February 2012, admitting that he delivered $50,000 from al-Qaida to an extremist group in Southeast Asia. That group, Jemaah Islamiyah funded a bombing of a Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, five months after his capture. The bombing killed 11 people and injured dozens.

Khan's 26-year prison sentence actually started with his guilty plea in 2012, so it would end in 2038. But after he cooperated with the US government for several years, he struck a deal that could see him released early in 2025. The officers said they don't believe he is still a danger to the public.

Khan and 13 other detainees were sent to Guantánamo Bay in 2006 due to how dangerous they were.

While there, Khan was denied basic human rights. He wasn't able to contact the International Red Cross, which works under the Geneva Convention, which would have allowed a war prisoner a lawyer or visitation rights after being sent to Guantánamo Bay.

The military officers branded this a "complete disregard for the foundational concepts upon which the Constitution was founded" and "an affront to American values and concept of justice" in their letter.

Khan's testimony of abuse at the hands of the CIA is thought to be similar to the experiences of the 9/11 attackers being held in custody by the US.

Five men face the death penalty for their part in planning the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Their trials have been delayed by legal arguments for years over fears that they would reveal sensitive information on CIA interrogation techniques.

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