In a scathing rebuke of the torture by the CIA after 9/11, seven senior army officers who overheard graphic descriptions of a terrorist’s brutal remedy whereas in company custody wrote a letter calling it “a stains”. America’s ethical fiber. “
Officers from an eight-member jury from the Army, Navy and Marines condemned the US authorities’s conduct in a clemency letter from al-Qaeda courier Majid Khan, a suburban Baltimore highschool graduate. He was dropped at the bottom to condemn Khan, who had pleaded responsible to terrorism costs. After serving him a 26-year sentence, he wrote a letter providing clemency.
The deliberations started after Khan spent two hours describing the violence inflicted on him by CIA brokers and operatives in dungeon-like circumstances in prisons in Pakistan, Afghanistan and a 3rd nation, together with sexual abuse and mind-numbing assaults. Separations had been concerned, typically at the hours of darkness when he was bare and in shackles.
“According to the letter obtained by Mr. The New York Times, Khan was subjected to bodily and psychological abuse past the authorized superior interrogation methods, quite than being near the torture inflicted by probably the most abusive regimes in trendy historical past.
The panel additionally responded to Khan’s declare that after his occupation in Pakistan in March 2003, he instructed the interrogators every part, however “the more I cooperated, the more I was tortured,” and so he subsequently lied to attempt to pacify the captive.
“This abuse had no practical value in terms of intelligence, or any other tangible benefit to American interests,” the letter mentioned. “Instead, it’s a stain on the ethical material of America; Mr Khan’s habits by the hands of American personnel must be a matter of disgrace for the US authorities.”
In his testimony on Thursday evening, Khan turned the primary former prisoner of the CIA’s so-called Black Sights to publicly describe intimately the violence and brutality utilized by US brokers to extract data and detain suspected terrorists in a secret abroad jail program. Had to be disciplined. After 9/11.
In doing so, Khan additionally supplied a preview of the knowledge rising within the demise penalty trial of 5 males accused of plotting 9/11, a course of that has been partly mired in pre-trial hearings for practically a decade. Is. The secrecy surrounding his torture by the CIA.
The company declined to touch upon the gist of Khan’s description of the black websites, which prosecutors didn’t want to refute. All he mentioned was that his detention and interrogation program working black websites led to 2009.
Khan, 41, was positioned with out both entry to the International Red Cross, the precise to go to prisoners of conflict underneath the Geneva Conventions, or a lawyer till he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006. He pleaded responsible in February 2012. Terrorism crimes, together with transporting $50,000 from al-Qaeda to Jemaah Islamiyah, an allied extremist group in Southeast Asia, used for the lethal bombing of a Marriott resort in Jakarta, Indonesia, 5 months after its seize Was. Eleven individuals died, and dozens extra had been injured.
His jail sentence started in 2012 together with his responsible plea, which means the panel’s 26-year sentence would finish in 2038.
But Khan, who has collaborated with the US authorities, helped federal and army prosecutors construct the case, a deal that was saved secret from a jury that might finish his sentence in February or 2025 on the newest.
Under the army fee system established after 9/11, even defendants who plead responsible and cope with the federal government should have a jury sentencing listening to. This was the case of Khan, who had a cooperative deal since 2012 that jurors didn’t know and was delayed by practically a decade to win favor within the type of working with authorities investigators and early launch from jury sentence. The sentence was handed down. .
The letter additionally condemned the authorized framework that saved Khan with out cost for 9 years and denied entry to a lawyer for the primary 4 years, “absolute disregard for the fundamental concepts” upon which the Constitution was based and “a disgrace” to the American idea of worth and justice. “
Although that is not often performed, a army protection legal professional could ask a panel for letters supporting mercy, comparable to a discount in sentence, for a service member who was convicted in a court-martial. Is.
But it was the primary time a sentencing jury had been requested in Guantanamo, the place accused terrorists are being tried by a army fee in ongoing efforts for Khan’s launch. The clemency advice will not be binding, nevertheless it may ship a robust message to the Military Commissions Combining Authority, the senior Pentagon official overseeing the conflict courtroom, whose function is to assessment a full case and determine with clemency petitions from protection attorneys. for whether or not to shorten a sentence.
In closing arguments, Khan’s army counsel, Army Major Michael Lynes, requested the panel to contemplate drafting a letter recommending clemency after which serving him a minimal sentence.
The jury foreman, a Navy captain, instructed the courtroom that he took the request and drafted it and signed it by an officer of the sentencing jury utilizing his panel member quantity because the jury on the National Security Court in Guantanamo. Anonymity is given. It was addressed to the convening authority of army commissions. Jeffrey Wood, an Army colonel with the Arkansas National Guard, at the moment fills that function as a civilian.
Ian Moss, a former Marine who’s a civilian legal professional on Khan’s protection staff, known as the letter “an extraordinary rebuke.”
“What makes apologies so powerful is that, given the jurors’ seniority, it is because their military careers have been affected in direct and potentially personal ways by the war of the past two decades,” he mentioned. ” They mentioned.
The jurors by no means urged that any remedy of Khan was unlawful. His letter famous that Khan, who by no means obtained US citizenship, was held up as a “foreign unrestricted enemy belligerent”, a place that made him eligible for trial by a army fee and “technically not borne out by the rights of American citizens.”
But, the officers famous, Khan pleaded responsible, took possession of his actions and “expressed regret for the impact the victims and their families have had. A clemency is recommended.”
Sentencing was delayed for practically a decade to present Khan time and alternative to cooperate with federal and army prosecutors, up to now behind the scenes, in federal and army terrorism circumstances. In the intervening years, prosecutors and protection legal professionals clashed in courtroom filings over who and the way could be known as to testify about Khan’s misconduct in CIA custody.
Unknown to the jurors, when he thought-about the sentence and ready a clemency letter, Wood had made an settlement with Khan to judge his cooperation with the federal government and commute his sentence. In return, Khan and his authorized staff agreed to desert his try to name witnesses to testify about his torture, almost certainly categorized till he may inform his story to the jury. performed.
The jury was additionally sympathetic to Khan’s attraction to radical Islam in 2001, on the age of 21, following his mom’s demise, and having joined al-Qaeda after 9/11. “A vulnerable target for extremist recruitment, he was influenced to pursue Islamic fundamentalist philosophy, as has been done by many others in recent years,” the letter mentioned. “Now 41 years old with a daughter he has never seen, he is remorseful and does not threaten future extremism.”
The panel was supplied 9 letters of assist from members of Khan’s household, together with his father and several other siblings – US residents who reside within the United States – in addition to his spouse, Rabia, and daughter Manal, who was born in Pakistan. and reside there.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS