A detainee held on the Guantanamo Bay detention centre has supplied the primary public account in a United States court docket, of torture at a CIA clandestine facility throughout Washington’s decades-long so-called “struggle on terror”.
Majid Khan, a former resident of a Baltimore suburb, detailed being waterboarded, bodily and sexually abused, and struggling different types of torment at a CIA “black website”, utilized by the US within the wake of the September 11, 2001 assaults.
Thursday’s testimony from Khan, which got here throughout a struggle crimes tribunal sentencing listening to on the US base in Cuba, represents the primary time a former “black website” detainee has publicly described abuses dedicated as a part of the US spy company’s so-called “enhanced interrogation strategies”, in keeping with the New York Instances.
Khan had earlier pleaded responsible to expenses associated to his function as an al-Qaeda courier and planner.
“I believed I used to be going to die,” Khan stated in the course of the testimony, detailing varied tortuous strategies, together with being suspended bare from a ceiling beam for lengthy intervals, being doused repeatedly with ice water to maintain him awake for days, and having his head held underwater to the purpose of near-drowning, solely to have water poured into his nostril and mouth when the interrogators let him up.
Khan stated that in his roughly three years being held at CIA websites, he was crushed, given compelled enemas, sexually assaulted and starved. He was transferred to the US army detention centre in Cuba in September 2006.
“I might beg them to cease and swear to them that I didn’t know something,” he stated. “If I had intelligence to offer I might have given it already however I didn’t have something to offer.”
Whereas a few of Khan’s therapy had beforehand been detailed in a 2014 US Senate Intelligence Committee report – which accused the CIA of going far past its authorized boundaries because it sought to extract details about al-Qaeda – public private accounts from high-level detainees have been just about non-existent.
“The extra I cooperated and informed them, the extra I used to be tortured,” Khan informed the court docket in obvious accordance with the Senate intelligence report conclusion that the conduct by US brokers was not solely inhumane, however typically ineffective.
Rights screens have continued to name for accountability for the abuses dedicated on the secret websites, with UN Particular Rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, saying in 2017 the conduct was in “clear violation of the Conference in opposition to Torture and is sending a harmful message of complacency and impunity to officers within the US and around the globe.”
They’ve additionally more and more urged US President Joe Biden to finish indefinite detentions at Guantanamo, one thing his earlier boss, former President Barack Obama, had vowed and did not do.
Plea deal
Khan, studying from a 39-page assertion, spoke on the primary day in what is predicted to be a two-day listening to. He pleaded responsible in February 2012 to expenses that embody conspiracy, homicide and offering materials assist to “terrorism”.
A panel of army officers chosen by a Pentagon authorized official – referred to as a convening authority – is ready to condemn Khan to between 25 and 40 years in jail. Nevertheless, he’ll serve far much less due to his in depth cooperation with US authorities, together with within the case in opposition to the 5 males at present being held at Guantanamo who’re charged with planning and offering logistical assist for the 9/11 assaults.
Underneath the plea deal, which the jurors weren’t informed about, Khan’s sentence by the jury might be decreased to not more than 11 years by the convening authority, and he’ll get credit score for his time in custody since his February 2012 responsible plea.
Meaning he must be launched early subsequent 12 months, resettled in a 3rd, as but unknown, nation as a result of he can not return to Pakistan, the place he has citizenship.
‘Tried to make up for the unhealthy issues’
Born in Saudi Arabia, Khan got here to the US along with his household within the Nineteen Nineties. He graduated from highschool within the Baltimore suburbs and held a expertise job in Washington, DC, the place he was working in the course of the September 11 assaults.
He stated he turned to al-Qaeda following the loss of life of his mom, whom he described as crucial individual in his life.
He has admitted to delivering $50,000 of al-Qaeda funds used for a lethal bombing of a Marriott lodge in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, in 2003, though he beforehand stated he didn’t know the way the cash can be used.
The 41-year-old has additionally admitted to plotting different tried assaults with alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Through the testimony, Khan requested for forgiveness for his actions, whereas saying he has additionally forgiven his captors.
“I’ve additionally tried to make up for the unhealthy issues I’ve accomplished,” he stated. “That’s why I pleaded responsible and cooperated with the USA authorities.”
The US at present holds 39 males on the detention centre on Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. Khan is the primary of a number of so-called “high-value” detainees who went by means of the CIA interrogation programmes to be convicted and sentenced.
The trial of the 5 males within the September 11 assaults, together with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, stays within the pretrial stage and a choose has stated it can begin no before subsequent 12 months.