The unusual case of Majid Khan in Guantanamo prison camp

A STORY I WROTE FOR THE TIMES BUT NOT USED: A “high-value” terrorist detainee held in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba who was hung naked by his wrists during torture interrogations by the CIA is set to be a test case for whether harsh treatment by the US intelligence agency post 9/11 can be used as mitigation in court. Majid Khan, a Pakistani and a former resident in the US, took the unprecedented step in 2012 of pleading guilty to al-Qaeda terrorist offences, agreeing to help the CIA and FBI as a witness in future terror trials in return for a reduced sentence. Sentence, expected at the time of the court case to be around 19 years in prison, was delayed while Khan waited to appear as a state witness. This has yet to happen. Now lawyers acting for Khan have asked the court to take into account the torture he suffered during his interrogation by the CIA before he decides on the sentence. US Army Colonel Douglas Watkins, chief judge at Guantanamo, is due to hear the arguments for and against on July 9. If he decides in favour of Khan’s defence counsel, it would set a precedent which could have far-reaching implications for the trial of the five terrorist suspects in Guantanamo charged with orchestrating the attacks in the US on September 11 2001, causing the death of nearly 3,000 people. Any reference to CIA torture at legal hearings and trials at the Guantanamo court is classified. A 40-second delay in the audio-visual system enables the court’s security officer to press a button to stop transmission of anything related to the CIA, the “black” sites where the enhanced interrogation took place between 2002 and 2006 and the torture methods used. Lawyers for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four accused 9/11 co-conspirators have been arguing ever since they were first brought to court at Guantanamo more than ten years ago that their treatment at the hands of the CIA should be addressed during their future trial. The prosecution, led by a brigadier-general, successfully fought against this request on the grounds that all contact between the defendants and the CIA had to remain top secret. A new judge has just taken over the 9/11 case. US Air Force Colonel Shane Cohen will face the same legal arguments. But if Judge Watkins allows for Majid Khan’s CIA treatment to impact on his sentence, Colonel Cohen will come under pressure to give a similar concession to the 9/11 defendants. “Welcome to the sewer, judge,” James Harrington, counsel for one of the 9/11 accused, told Judge Cohen last week at his opening appearance in the Guantanamo court. Underlining the potential watershed moment in the Guantanamo hearings, lawyers acting for Ammar al-Baluchi, a 9/11 suspect, have submitted a brief to the judge in the Khan case arguing that “the only appropriate remedy” was dismissal of the charge because of the “incredibly harsh conditions he was held under”. When he appeared in court in 2012, and I was there to cover it for The Times, Khan wore a blue pinstripe suit, in contrast to the 9/11 accused who always wear traditional Middle Eastern garments. He pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaeda to assassinate a former Pakistan president and to being a courier for the terror group. He is held, for his own safety, in a special annexe detention site at Guantanamo. There are now only 40 detainees at Guantanamo compared with 780 held at the peak of the camp’s inmate population. Seventeen of them are regarded as “high-value” detainees, thought to be retaining key intelligence about the al-Qaeda organisation. They are housed in the top secret Camp 7 jail. Khan is the only convicted prisoner.