WaPo : Judge orders sanity hearing for accused Sept. 11 plotter

Judge orders sanity hearing for accused Sept. 11 plotter

By Adam Goldman | December 19, 2013

A military judge on Thursday halted proceedings against Ramzi Binalshibh, a self-described key operative in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, ordering that he undergo a mental examination and throwing into doubt whether the government will ever be able to prosecute the “high-value” detainee.

More than a decade after the attacks, none of the five accused al-Qaeda plotters in U.S. custody — including the confessed mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed — has been brought to trial, their cases repeatedly stymied by legal problems and political wrangling. The latest delay raises questions about whether the CIA’s handling of Binalshibh while he was in the agency’s secret overseas prisons contributed to his ongoing mental problems.

The judge’s order Thursday followed a series of outbursts by Binalshibh at a pretrial military commission hearing this week at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and is another blow to a proceeding that has stopped and started across two administrations. It now may be many months, if not years, before the defendants are tried.

Prosecutors asked the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, to have Binalshibh, a 41-year-old Yemeni, evaluated after he was repeatedly ejected from court for refusing to quiet down and calling the judge and the commander of the detention facility war criminals.

“Until this is completed, there will be no further open hearings in this case,” Pohl said.

The interruption comes as the Obama administration is reviving its effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. Officials have recently moved several detainees abroad, including two this week to Sudan, reducing the population at the controversial facility to 158.

The judge scheduled the next hearing at Guantanamo Bay for February, but defense attorneys said it may take a panel of three doctors much longer to complete the review of Binalshibh. The trial for all five defendants cannot move forward until Binalshibh’s status is resolved. His mental competence has been questioned before, and a review that was ordered in 2008, before President Obama took office and suspended commissions, was never finished.

In 2009, prosecutors told the court that Binalshibh was taking “a variety of psychotropic medications used to treat schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder, including Haldol, Abilify, risperidone and Ativan.”

A military medical board in 2008 said that Binalshibh might have a “severe mental disease.”

He is held at Camp 7, a high- security and classified section at Guantanamo Bay. According to court records, he has smeared his cell with feces and broken observation cameras at the complex, which is separate from other parts of the prison.

Binalshibh was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and whisked to a secret CIA prison, where he was subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” that human rights advocates have described as torture. He and 13 other high-value detainees were transferred to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006.

Binalshibh wanted to die in the Sept. 11 attacks but did not have the chance, according to the 9/11 Commission report. He repeatedly applied for and was rejected for a U.S. visa and instead became a key liaison between hijacker Mohammed Atta and al-Qaeda’s leadership in Afghanistan.

Defense lawyers assert that Binalshibh’s health problems began after the CIA captured him in Pakistan in 2002.

“He wasn’t on psychotropic medications or having mental problems prior to his being detained by the CIA,” said Thomas Durkin, Binalshibh’s former attorney. “There was no evidence of any mental issues.”

Between 2002 and 2006, Binalshibh spent time at CIA-controlled facilities in Afghanistan, Poland, Morocco and Romania, according to former agency officials. In Romania, Binalshibh believed that the CIA was tormenting him by intentionally shaking his prefabricated cell, in the basement of a government building near a railway line, officials said.

A former senior CIA official said that Binalshibh was prone to tantrums and threw food but that there was no evidence that he was mentally unstable at the time the agency held him. He complained so often, one official said, that he earned the nickname Beaker, a Muppets character prone to misfortune.

CIA officials say the detainees received excellent medical care while in the custody of the agency after enduring harsh interrogation. However, an attorney for another detainee and alleged co-conspirator, Walid bin Attash, said his client was missing several teeth and had ringworm when he emerged from a secret CIA prison in 2006.

It’s unclear what prompted prosecutors to make the motion for a competency test. Typically, it is the defense lawyers who ask a judge to determine whether their client is fit to stand trial.

Legals experts said prosecutors might be laying the groundwork to sever Binalshibh from the oft-delayed case so it can move forward. But a prosecutor told the judge Thursday that he had no interest in separating Binalshibh from the other defendants.

The renewed attention involving Binalshibh’s treatment by the CIA comes as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is pushing to make public parts of a report that examines the effectiveness of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.

Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Raw Story : 9/11 suspect ejected by Gitmo judge after mentioning secret CIA prisons

9/11 suspect ejected by Gitmo judge after mentioning secret CIA prisons

By Agence France-Presse | December 17, 2013

One of the men suspected of planning the September 11, 2001 attacks was twice ejected from a US military court Tuesday after making outbursts about secret CIA prisons and torture.

Yemeni defendant Ramzi Binalshibh, who is accused of helping the hijackers enter the United States and of financing the airliner attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, also claimed that the judge hearing the case was biased.

Binalshibh was initially removed from the latest pre-trial hearing at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba after twice being warned by the judge that he was disrupting the proceedings.

The suspect’s departure came shortly after his lawyer suggested that guards were using sleep deprivation tactics at the US military prison’s notoriously tightly-guarded Camp Seven.

“He could not sleep at all last night because of the noise he is exposed to,” said Navy Lieutenant Commander Kevin Bogucki. “He is too tired to pay attention.”

The latest hearing for the alleged 9/11 plotters, who are eventually expected to go on trial in 2015, was screened for reporters at the Fort Meade military base in Maryland, via a closed-circuit feed.

Commander Bogucki said Binalshibh’s cell was continually subjected to banging and knocking sounds — an allegation the US government denies, but which the judge said had not been proven either way.

Having been granted a 15-minute recess to discuss whether Binalshibh understood his right to be present at Tuesday’s hearing, the suspect refused to cooperate with Judge James Pohl.

“I refuse to answer this question as long as the judge is taking a position against me and against my allegations,” said Binalshibh, who purportedly had intended to be one of the hijackers but was refused a US visa on four occasions.

After being warned that it was not his time to speak, the Yemeni suspect, whose alleged crimes include helping the hijackers find flight schools in the United States, cited the words “secret CIA prison” during a muffled speech.

Judge Pohl then told Binalshibh — who the defense insists is not delusional — that he would be removed if he did not stop talking. But the suspect continued and US military guards were instructed to take him to the court’s holding cell.

The courtroom camera cut away while Binalshibh was removed.

The other four suspects, including the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were also present at Tuesday’s hearing, dressed in traditional white Arab robes and desert-colored combat jackets. Unlike Binalshibh, they acknowledged their right to attend.

Ejected a second time

Following the lunch recess, Binalshibh returned to the courtroom but he again refused the judge’s request and was ejected a second time, amid shouts of “I am not a war criminal”.

“As I told you this morning, I am not going to answer your questions,” Binalshibh had told Judge Pohl seconds earlier, when pressed for a “Yes or No” answer on whether he understood his rights.

“I want to leave. It is not about yes or no. It is torture. Don’t stop me like that,” Binalshibh added, just before he was removed.

The 9/11 tribunal is taking place against a background of a political push to shut down Guantanamo.

President Barack Obama pledged to close the prison when he took office in January 2009 but has so far failed to do so, amid resistance in Congress.

Two Saudi Arabian suspects arrived back in Riyadh on Tuesday, following a US transfer that leaves Guantanamo’s population at 160.

Binalshibh and his co-conspirators are deemed “high-value” detainees by the American military.

Following their detentions, in 2002 and 2003, the five 9/11 suspects spent three years in secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons abroad where they were subjected to harsh interrogation techniques, including the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, a practice widely considered torture.

Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, according to US Justice Department memos.

The pre-trial hearing on Tuesday included requests by defense lawyers to introduce evidence that their clients were tortured by their American captors.