Guantánamo prisoner charges confession extracted through torture

Al-Nashiri was one of 14 detainees moved by the US to the Guantánamo prison camp last September. These 14 “high-value” detainees were transferred following the exposure of a network of CIA-run secret prisons around the world and the Bush administration’s acknowledgement of the prisons’ existence.

Military hearings are currently underway at Guantánamo to determine these prisoners’ “enemy combatant” status. Once this is confirmed, they can be held indefinitely before being brought before a military commission, which would have the power to condemn them to death.

The Pentagon released a redacted transcript of testimony given by al-Nashiri at a closed-door hearing held March 14 at Guantánamo. His charges of torture underscore the illegal character of the detention of the Guantánamo prisoners and the thoroughly antidemocratic character of the military hearings, which deny defendants the rudiments of due process. Al-Nashiri’s statements also demonstrate that the purported confessions extracted from prisoners held for months on end—without charges, without legal counsel and without contact with the outside world—are, from a legitimate legal standpoint, worthless.

“From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me,” al-Nashiri testified at the hearing. “It happened during interviews. One time they tortured me one way, and another time they tortured me in a different way.

“I just said those things to make the people happy,” the transcript reads. “They were very happy when I told them those things.”

According to US intelligence, al-Nashiri is the “mastermind” of the October 12, 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which left 17 US sailors dead and almost succeeded in sinking the $1 billion destroyer.

The US alleges that he was the leader of Al Qaeda’s operations in the Persian Gulf at the time and was tasked by Osama bin Laden to organize the attack. In the transcript provided by the Pentagon, al-Nashiri says he met with the Al Qaeda leader numerous times and received as much as a half-million dollars from him. He says the money was for “personal expenses,” including purchasing a boat and developing a fishing business.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/tort-m31.shtml