An Islamist terrorist who masterminded the cowardly attack on a U.S. warship that resulted in the death of 17 sailors has been saved by a military judge who tossed out his “voluntary” confession on a technicality.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian citizen behind the plotting of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole who is being tried for his role in the attack in the longest-running death penalty case at Guantanamo Bay, was saved by the ruling which found that his confession which was obtained under controversial enhanced interrogation techniques was invalid.
“Exclusion of such evidence is not without societal costs,” wrote Col. Lanny J. Acosta Jr., in his decision. “However, permitting the admission of evidence obtained by or derived from torture by the same government that seeks to prosecute and execute the accused may have even greater societal costs.”
“If there was ever a case where the circumstances of an accused’s prior statements impacted his ability to make a later voluntary statement, this is such a case. Even if the 2007 statements were not obtained by torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, they were derived from it,” the judge said.
“Any resistance the accused might have been inclined to put up when asked to incriminate himself was intentionally and literally beaten out of him years before,” Acosta wrote.
al-Nashiri was captured in Dubai in 2002 and spent four years at the facilities known as CIA “black sites” where he was interrogated prior to his transfer to Guantanamo where he was held while awaiting trial.
According to the New York Times, “Testimony showed that the psychologists took part in a yearslong program that, even after the violent interrogation techniques ended, used isolation, sleep deprivation, punishment for defiance and implied threats of more violence to keep the prisoners cooperative and speaking to interrogators.”
“Prosecutors considered Mr. Nashiri’s confessions to federal and Navy criminal investigative agents at Guantánamo in early 2007, four months after his transfer from a C.I.A. prison, to be among the best evidence against him,” the outlet reported.
The Cole, which was docked at a harbor in Aden, Yemen on October 12, 2000, was approached by two suicide bombers in a small boat packed with C4 explosives that were detonated, the damage was extensive, costing 17 service members their lives with an additional 37 injured in an attack that was a precursor of 9/11 when al Qaeda zealots hijacked airplanes that were used as missiles to destroy the World Trade Center, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent people.
(Video: YouTube/Smithsonian)
“The extensive FBI investigation ultimately determined that members of the al Qaeda terrorist network planned and carried out the bombing. The investigation also revealed that the USS Cole bombing followed an unsuccessful attempt on January 3, 2000, to bomb another U.S. Navy ship, the USS The Sullivans. In this earlier incident, the terrorist boat sank before the explosives could be detonated; however, the boat and the explosives were salvaged. The boat was then refitted, and the explosives were tested and reused in the USS Cole attack,” according to the FBI.
Get the latest BPR news delivered free to your inbox daily. SIGN UP HERE
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.