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Military tribunal finds CIA techniques irrelevant to detainee competency hearing

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A military tribunal has ruled that lawyers for accused 9/11 co-conspirator Ramzi bin al-Shibh will not be made aware of what interrogation techniques were used on him by the CIA prior to his transfer to Guantanamo Bay, according to a Monday report by the Miami Herald. Bin al-Shibh's military defense lawyer, Navy Commander Suzanne Lachelier, had sought to learn the specifics of his interrogations in advance of a September competency hearing. Lachelier argued that interrogation details were relevant to determining whether bin al-Shibh suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or a permanent psychological disability, which would in turn affect his competency to stand trial. However, presiding judge Army Colonel Stephen Henley found on August 6 that the details of bin al-Shibh's interrogation were not relevant to determining his current mental competency but would risk disclosure of classified information. Henley said that the Supreme Court's 2006 decision in Boumediene v. Bush required him to weigh the national security challenge invoked by prosecutors against bin al-Shibh's right to challenge evidence against him. Last month, military prosecutors sought to delay the cases against three terrorism suspects while the US government revises the system used to try them, fearing that changes made to the trial structure would require re-hearing of or invalidate entire proceedings. The Pentagon approved death penalty charges against bin al-Shibh and four other suspects in May, and they were arraigned in June. In February, CIA Director Michael Hayden publicly acknowledged that fellow co-conspirator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been subjected to waterboarding during interrogation. In January, Susan Crawford, the tribunal's convening authority, said in an interview with the Washington Post that torture tactics were used in the interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani, a suspect held at Guantanamo under allegations of connections to the 9/11 attacks. Crawford made the statement after nearly two years of reviewing Guantanamo Bay practices as well as the strength of legal cases against detainees.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on August 11, 2009 (boomark / email).