Gitmo prisoner says he lied under CIA torture

DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)

A prisoner of the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison said he lied and made up stories about his links to al-Qaeda in order to put an end to the brutal torture he received during interrogation sessions with the CIA, government transcripts released on Monday said.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an accused top al-Qaeda operative and self-confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, told a military tribunal in 2007: "I just make up stories."

Mohammad told the court at Guantanamo Bay of an interrogation session during which he was asked about the location of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

"Where is he? I don't know. Then he torture me," Mohammed, who spoke in broken English, said of his interrogator. "Then I said: 'Yes, he is in this area or this is al-Qaeda...' [if] I said no, they torture me."

Mohammed also said he had pointed out people he did not know as al-Qaeda members to avoid being abused.

Although he said he made false confessions, in the same hearing, Mohammed had a personal representative read a statement in which he admitted to having taken part in 31 separate terror plots and responsibilities.

The documents, transcripts of court hearings held at the U.S. military base in Cuba, were previously released but this time round information that had been classified by the former George W. Bush administration was revealed and contained details about the detention of terrorism suspects.

The newly declassified portion of the transcript showed that Mohammad said the CIA told him he had no constitutional rights.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

"This is what I understand he told me: You are not American and you are not on American soil," Mohammed said. "So you cannot ask about the constitution."

The partially redacted documents were released as part of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to obtain uncensored transcripts of military tribunals held to determine whether detainees were "enemy combatants," a designation that has been dropped by President Barack Obama's administration.

ACLU staff attorney Ben Wizner called on the Obama administration to release more documents related to the CIA's detention program and said the rights group would return to the court to seek a full declassification of the documents.

"Why would the Bush administration suppress [Mohammed's] statement that he was told by the CIA that he was not protected by the constitution?" Wizner said. "This was suppressed to avoid embarrassment."

"There is only one explanation for the continued suppression. It is not to protect national security, it is to protect the CIA from accountability," he added.

"Swollen nerves"

Abu Zubaydah

The new declassified information revealed statement by another "high value" detainee, Abu Zubaydah, who said he almost died under interrogation.

"After months of suffering and torture, physically and mentally, they did not care about my injuries that they inflicted to my eye, to my stomach, to my bladder, and my left thigh and my reproductive organs... Doctors told me that I nearly died four times," Zubaydah said.

"They say, 'this in your diary.' They say, 'see you want to make operation against America.' I say no, the idea is different. They say no, torturing, torturing. I say 'okay, I do. I was decide to make operation.'"

Zubaydah was the first "high-value" detainee to be subjected to enhanced interrogation approved by the Bush administration, including waterboarding, a simulated drowning method critics say amounts to torture, but former Vice President Dick Cheney defended as "essential" to getting as much information as possible from detainees.

Majid Khan

Majid Khan, the only U.S. national among "high value" detainees held at Guantanamo, the U.S. naval base in southern Cuba where some 230 prisoners remain, also claimed he had been tortured.

"In the end any classified information you have is through [redacted] agencies who physically and mentally tortured me," he said.

Also in the newly declassified documents were statements by Rahim Nashiri, who is accused of involvement in the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in 2000.

"Before I was arrested I used to be able to run about 10 kilometers," Nashiri told a tribunal in 2007. "Now I cannot walk for more than 10 minutes. My nerves are swollen in my body."