Torture: The Government's Worst Kept Secret

By Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project. Ben arrived in Guantanamo Bay Tuesday evening to attend this week's military commission hearings involving three Guantanamo detainees.

Yesterday’s military commission hearings underscored yet again that no matter what else may be at issue, the question of torture will remain at the very heart of these proceedings.

In the morning, the commission convened to consider disputed discovery requests in the prosecution of Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen who was captured at age 15 in Afghanistan and is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. serviceman and participating in a terrorist conspiracy beginning when he was all of ten years old.

Khadr’s attorneys are seeking the identities of the interrogators who questioned him in Afghanistan, even as he lay wounded from gunshot wounds incurred during the U.S. raid on his compound (more on that later). The military intelligence unit involved in those interrogations was the same unit implicated in the deaths of two detainees at Bagram prison. U.S. investigators later recommended that 27 members of that unit be criminally prosecuted. Khadr’s lawyers would like to question the interrogators regarding the methods used to extract statements from their 15-year-old client.

We don’t know the details of Khadr’s abuse allegations, because – inexplicably – the government has classified an affidavit in which Khadr describes his treatment in Afghanistan. Khadr’s lawyer referred obliquely to that affidavit, noting during the hearing that Khadr had sustained extensive injuries to his eyes during the firefight and asking the judge to consider the effect of the "technique" described in paragraph 25 of the affidavit on someone with damaged eyes. We were left to guess what the "technique" might have been, but it’s absolutely unacceptable that such information continues to be withheld from the American public and the world.

Indeed, yesterday the ACLU filed suit in federal court to compel the government to release un-redacted transcripts in which 14 other prisoners now held in Guantánamo describe abuse and torture they suffered while in CIA custody. There is no remotely legitimate basis for the government to withhold these prisoners’ account of their mistreatment. I would simply note that governments don’t censor information to conceal lies. They censor information to conceal the truth. We will continue to press this issue vigorously until all of the government’s dirty laundry has been aired and the whole dismal history of our torture regime has come to light.

The most intriguing revelation in yesterday’s hearing did not involve interrogation techniques, but rather an unresolved dispute regarding the attempt by Khadr’s lawyers to depose the sole U.S. officer who wrote official reports of the firefight in which Khadr was wounded and a U.S. serviceman killed. During proceedings last month, it was first revealed, albeit inadvertently, that contrary to all previous accounts, Khadr had not been the sole survivor of a group occupying an insurgent compound – and therefore not the only person who could have thrown the grenade. Yesterday, Khadr’s lawyer revealed that the officer who wrote the official report of the incident had in fact produced two versions of the report. In the first, produced the day after the firefight, the officer reported that the enemy who had thrown the grenade had been killed during the firefight. Two months later, the report was altered to indicate that the enemy who threw the grenade had been "engaged," not killed. Why, Khadr’s lawyer asked, did the officer alter his report?

The judge indicated that he would rule on the defense’s request for a deposition, as well as other matters, today.

In the afternoon, Saudi national Ahmed al-Darbi was arraigned before the commission. Al-Darbi, reportedly a brother-in-law of one of the 9/11 hijackers (though not alleged to have participated in those attacks), is charged with the more typical commission offenses of terrorist conspiracy and providing material support to terrorist organization. Like Khadr, al-Darbi has alleged that he was seriously abused while detained at Bagram prison, but unlike Khadr, al-Darbi’s allegations have the support of the U.S. government: they were considered sufficiently credible that military prosecutors submitted a declaration from al-Darbi during the court-martial of an Army soldier. The soldier was acquitted of abuse charges.

Al-Darbi’s hearing was the most uneventful that I’ve witnessed, though I should note that the judge presiding over his case also presided over the court martial of Lynndie Englund and other Abu Ghraib torturers. That’s likely to be a useful resume for these proceedings.

Following the hearings, I chatted with an old Guantanamo acquaintance who is now responsible for "detainee programs" – e.g., the library, English language classes, and the like. What are they reading? I asked. Religious books are the most popular, followed by the final Harry Potter installment. And, it turns out that "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" is a new favorite. (Habit Number 2: "Begin with the End in Mind.") Really, you can’t make this stuff up.