Constitutional Law

Top Bush Official Says Detainee Was Tortured

A senior Bush administration official says a GuantánamoBay detainee was tortured, The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward reports. Susan J. Crawford, a top Pentagon official overseeing the military commissions told Woodward that interrogation methods used on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused of helping to plot the 2001 terrorist attacks, amounted to torture. According to The Post, the techniques included “sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold ….” Crawford said, “We tortured Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case” for prosecution. The newspaper also reported that military prosecutors are bent on refilling charges against Qahtani, but that Crawford was also set on barring prosecution from proceeding.

Regarding the future of the military base at Guantánamo, The New York Times reported yesterday that transition team officials for President-elect Barack Obama were considering ways to shutter the prison and to deal with the detainees. Catherine Powell, a professor of law at Fordham and a participant in meetings with transition officials, told the newspaper that the incoming administration is “really looking for tools that we have in our existing system short of creating an indefinite detention system.” The newspaper noted that the closing the military prison may take at least a year.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on January 14, 2009 (boomark / email).