A US Army judge has ruled that defense attorneys for Ramzi bin al Shibh, a Yemeni man accused of having co-conspired the 9/11 attacks, may not learn what "interrogation techniques" CIA agents used on him before he was moved to Guantánamo.
Bin al Shibh, 37, is one of five men charged in a complex death penalty prosecution by military commission currently under review by the Obama administration. He allegedly helped organize the Hamburg, Germany, cell of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers before the suicide mission that killed 2,974 people in New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.
But his lawyers say he suffers a "delusional disorder," and hallucinations in his cell at Guantánamo may leave him neither sane enough to act as his own attorney nor to stand trial. Prison camp doctors treat him with psychotropic drugs. (…) [T]he judge ruled on Aug. 6 that "evidence of specific techniques employed by various governmental agencies to interrogate the accused is . . . not essential to a fair resolution of the incompetence determination hearing in this case."
We already know that techniques used on other detainees — including Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, who is also a defendant in this trial — included waterboarding, sleep deprivation and extreme sexual humiliation….
But Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, the Yemeni's Pentagon appointed defense attorney, said court-approved mental health experts — as well as the judge — need to know the specifics to assess her client's mental illness. If he suffers a long-standing psychosis, she said, he may never be made competent for trial. But if he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his CIA interrogations, there may be PTSD treatments that could make him competent.
Judge: CIA interrogations not relevant to 9/11 accused's sanity (Miami Herald)
