Evidence to be preserved in Guantanamo torture case: court

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A US appeals court has ordered President George W. Bush's administration to preserve any evidence relevant to a case involving a US national held at Guantanamo Bay who alleges he was tortured while in CIA hands.

Coming just days after the Central Intelligence Agency admitted it had destroyed videotapes of harsh interrogations of terror suspects, the preliminary order by the federal appeals court Tuesday said the government had to protect any evidence related to the case of Majid Khan, the only US national among 15 "high-value" detainees at the Guantanamo base in Cuba.

Khan, 27, a legal US resident and Pakistani never charged with a crime during his three years detained by the CIA, has alleged he was tortured by the spy agency.

In a motion submitted to the court by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Khan, who was detained in 2003 in Karachi, was said to have been subjected "to an aggressive CIA detention and interrogation program notable for its elaborate planning and ruthless application of torture."



Read more: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iw2dFlv6E5iz9hlVBH8csNIH9O0g

[LakeSamish706]

1. And who's going to make them do this? n/t

[saigon68]

2. HOW DO YOU SAVE THE RAG USED TO GAG THE prisoner

Or the bucket of water he thought he was drowning in?

[L. Coyote]

3. PROTEST, GITMO Style = Majid chewed through the artery in his left arm until it bled

CCR Attorneys Release Revelations of Torture of Former Ghost Detainee Majid Khan
http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/ccr-attorneys-release-revelations-torture-former-ghost-detainee-majid-khan

Motion Filed to Preserve Evidence of Majid's Torture While at CIA Black Site

Last week, a motion that Center for Constitutional Rights attorneys filed in the case of former ghost detainee Majid Khan was made public. The heavily redacted motion, which was filed in order to preserve evidence of Majid's torture, contains new revelations of his treatment while interrogated at a CIA black site. The motion was filed before it was revealed that the CIA had destroyed interrogation tapes.

A small portion of the notes that CCR attorneys Gitanjali Gutierrez and Wells Dixon compiled based on their conversations with Majid in November were also declassified. Below is of the information contained in the notes:

* Majid chewed through the artery in his left arm until it bled last January and still has a scar.
* Majid has been on hunger strikes to protest for his rights to see his lawyers and to protest his conditions and being kept in isolation. Hunger strikes were the only way he knew how to assert his rights. One of his teachers at Owings Mills High School in Baltimore taught him about checks and balances, and he learned that if you do not assert and protect your rights, you do not deserve to be in the United States.
* Majid also went on hunger strike to get The Washington Post.
* The attorneys were initially angry because they thought perhaps the guards had brought the wrong detainee in to meet with them, which has happened in the past—Majid has lost so much weight that they did not recognize him from the photos and video they had seen; he was painfully thin and pale. He immediately looked at them and said, “Dixon? Gita? I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you. It’s good to see you.”
* He is suffering from symptoms of PTSD – concentration, memory lost, frantic expression, etc.
* He requested books and a subscription to The Washington Post.
* He wishes he had gone to college.

Both the motion and the declassified notes are attached below.

.............

[Judi Lynn]

4. Thanks for supplying the additional and invaluable information about Majid Khan.

Hoping against hope his suffering will not have been in vain, in the end.

Would have continued to be ignorant of the facts had you not shared the information you have. Thank you.