Alleged 9/11 Mastermind: "I Make Up Stories"

Alleged 9/11 mastermind: `I make up stories'

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nati...y/1098707.html

BY DEVLIN BARRETT
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Accused al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed complained that interrogators tortured lies out of him, though he proudly took credit for more than two dozen other terror plots, according to newly released sections of government transcripts.

"I make up stories," Mohammed said at one point in his 2007 hearing at Guantánamo Bay.

In broken English, he described an interrogation in which he was asked the location of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"Where is he? I don't know," Mohammed said. 'Then he torture me. Then I said, 'Yes, he is in this area or this is al Qaeda which I don't know him.' I said no, they torture me."

Yet at the same military tribunal hearing, Mohammed ticked off a list of 29 terror plots in which he took part.

The transcripts were released as part of a lawsuit in which the American Civil Liberties Union is seeking documents and details of the government's terror detainee programs.

Previous accounts of the military tribunal hearings had been made public, but the Obama administration went back and reviewed the still-secret sections and determined that more portions could be released.

Most of the new material centers around the detainees' claims of abuse during interrogations while being held overseas in CIA custody.

One detainee, Abu Zubaydah, told the tribunal that after months ``of suffering and torture, physically and mentally, they did not care about my injuries."

Zubaydah was the first detainee subjected to Bush administration-approved harsh interrogation techniques, which included a simulated form of drowning known as waterboarding, slamming the suspect into walls and prolonged period of nudity.

Zubaydah claimed in the hearing that he ``nearly died four times."

"After a few months went by, during which I almost lost my mind and my life, they made sure I didn't die," Zubaydah said.

He claimed that after many months of such treatment, authorities concluded he was not the No. 3 person in al Qaeda as they had long believed.

Newly Released Detainee Statements Provide More Evidence Of CIA Torture Program
CIA Continues To Suppress Information From Detainee Tribunals With Heavy Redactions

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture...s20090615.html

(6/15/2009)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The CIA today released still-highly redacted documents in which Guantánamo Bay prisoners describe abuse and torture they suffered in CIA custody. The documents were released as part of an American Civil Liberties Union Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking uncensored transcripts from Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) that determine if prisoners held by the Defense Department at Guantánamo qualify as "enemy combatants." In previously released versions of the documents, the CIA had removed virtually all references to the abuse of prisoners in their custody; the documents released today are still heavily blacked out but include some new information.

"The documents released today provide further evidence of brutal torture and abuse in the CIA's interrogation program and demonstrate beyond doubt that this information has been suppressed solely to avoid embarrassment and growing demands for accountability," said Ben Wizner, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project and lead attorney on the FOIA lawsuit. "There is no legitimate basis for the Obama administration's continued refusal to disclose allegations of detainee abuse, and we will return to court to seek the full release of these documents."

The newly unredacted information includes statements from the CSRTs of former CIA detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Abd Al Rahim Hussein Mohammed Al Nashiri, Abu Zubaydah and Majid Khan, including descriptions of torture and coercion. These statements include:

• Abu Zubaydah: "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. They didn't care that I almost died from these injuries. Doctors told me that I nearly died four times." "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.'"
• Al Nashiri: "[And, they used to] drown me in water."
• Muhammad: "This is what I understand he [CIA interrogator] told me: you are not American and you are not on American soil. So you cannot ask about the Constitution."
• Khan: "In the end, any classified information you have is through…agencies who physically and mentally tortured me."

"The information released today sheds some new light on the CIA's torture program, but there are still unanswered questions," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. "The Obama administration should make good on its commitment to transparency, stop suppressing information about torture and abuse and hold accountable the officials who put unlawful policies in place."

Attorneys in this case are Wizner and Jaffer of the ACLU National Security Project, Judy Rabinovitz and Amrit Singh of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, and Arthur B. Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area.

More information about the ACLU's CSRT FOIA, including the documents released today, is available online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/csrtfoia.html

Some of the evidence cited against KSM:

A computer hard drive seized during the capture of the Detainee contained information about the four airplanes hijacked on 11 September 2001 including code names, airline company, flight number, target, pilot name and background information, and names of the hijackers.

A computer hard drive seized during the capture of the Detainee contained photographs of 19 individuals identified as the 11 September 2001 hijackers.

A computer hard drive seized during the capture of the Detainee contained a document that listed the pilot license fees for Mohammad Atta and biographies for some of the 11 September 2001 hijackers.

A computer hard drive seized during the capture of the Detainee contained images of passports and an image of Mohammad Atta.

A computer hard drive seized during the capture of the Detainee contained transcripts of chat sessions belonging to at least one of the 11 September 2001 hijackers.

A computer hard drive seized during the capture of the Detainee contained three letters from Usama Bin Laden.

A computer hard drive seized during the capture fo the Detainee contained spreadsheets that describe money assistance to families of known Al Qaeda members.

Was ANY of this cited by the 9/11 Report? I just checked, and nope.