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US Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons

By Carol D. Leonnig and Eric Rich

The Washington Post

Saturday 04 November 2006

 

Court is asked to bar detainees from talking about

interrogations.

 

The Bush administration has told a federal judge that

terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be

allowed to reveal details of the " alternative interrogation

methods " that their captors used to get them to talk.

 

The government says in new court filings that those

interrogation methods are now among the nation's most

sensitive national security secrets and that their release

-- even to the detainees' own attorneys -- " could reasonably

be expected to cause extremely grave damage. " Terrorists

could use the information to train in counter-interrogation

techniques and foil government efforts to elicit information

about their methods and plots, according to government

documents submitted to US District Judge Reggie B. Walton on

Oct. 26.

 

The battle over legal rights for terrorism suspects detained

for years in CIA prisons centers on Majid Khan, a

26-year-old former Catonsville resident who was one of 14

high-value detainees transferred in September from the

" black " sites to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay,

Cuba. A lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights,

which represents many detainees at Guantanamo, is seeking

emergency access to him.

 

The government, in trying to block lawyers' access to the 14

detainees, effectively asserts that the detainees'

experiences are a secret that should never be shared with

the public.

 

Because Khan " was detained by CIA in this program, he may

have come into possession of information, including

locations of detention, conditions of detention, and

alternative interrogation techniques that is classified at

the TOP SECRET//SCI level, " an affidavit from CIA

Information Review Officer Marilyn A. Dorn states, using the

acronym for " sensitive compartmented information. "

 

Gitanjali Gutierrez, an attorney for Khan's family,

responded in a court document yesterday that there is no

evidence that Khan had top-secret information. " Rather, " she

said, " the executive is attempting to misuse its

classification authority . . . to conceal illegal or

embarrassing executive conduct. "

 

Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor

who has represented several detainees at Guantanamo, said

the prisoners " can't even say what our government did to

these guys to elicit the statements that are the basis for

them being held. Kafka-esque doesn't do it justice. This is

'Alice in Wonderland.' "

 

Kathleen Blomquist, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said

yesterday that details of the CIA program must be protected

from disclosure. She said the lawyer's proposal for talking

with Khan " is inadequate to protect unique and potentially

highly classified information that is vital to our country's

ability to fight terrorism. "

 

Government lawyers also argue in court papers that detainees

such as Khan previously held in CIA sites have no automatic

right to speak to lawyers because the new Military

Commissions Act, signed by President Bush last month,

stripped them of access to US courts. That law established

separate military trials for terrorism suspects.

 

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

is considering whether Guantanamo detainees have the right

to challenge their imprisonment in US courts. The government

urged Walton to defer any decision on access to lawyers

until the higher court rules.

 

The government filing expresses concern that detainee

attorneys will provide their clients with information about

the outside world and relay information about detainees to

others. In an affidavit, Guantanamo's staff judge advocate,

Cmdr. Patrick M. McCarthy, said that in one case a

detainee's attorney took questions from a BBC reporter with

him into a meeting with a detainee at the camp. Such

indirect interviews are " inconsistent with the purpose of

counsel access " at the prison, McCarthy wrote.

 

Dorn said in the court papers that for lawyers to speak to

former CIA detainees under the security protocol used for

other Guantanamo detainees " poses an unacceptable risk of

disclosure. " But detainee attorneys said they have followed

the protocol to the letter, and none has been accused of

releasing information without government clearance.

 

Captives who have spent time in the secret prisons, and

their advocates, have said the detainees were sometimes

treated harshly with techniques that included

" waterboarding, " which simulates drowning. Bush has declared

that the administration will not tolerate the use of torture

but has pressed to retain the use of unspecified

" alternative " interrogation methods.

 

The government argues that once rules are set for the new

military commissions, the high-value detainees will have

military lawyers and " unprecedented " rights to challenge

charges against them in that venue.

 

US officials say Khan, a Pakistani national who lived in the

United States for seven years, took orders from Khalid Sheik

Mohammed, the man accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11,

2001, attacks. Mohammed allegedly asked Khan to research

poisoning US reservoirs and considered him for an operation

to assassinate the Pakistani president.

 

In a separate court document filed last night, Khan's

attorneys offered declarations from Khaled al-Masri, a

released detainee who said he was held with Khan in a dingy

CIA prison called " the salt pit " in Afghanistan. There,

prisoners slept on the floor, wore diapers and were given

tainted water that made them vomit, Masri said. American

interrogators treated him roughly, he said, and told him he

" was in a land where there were no laws. "

 

Khan's family did not learn of his whereabouts until Bush

announced his transfer in September, more than three years

after he was seized in Pakistan.

 

The family said Khan was staying with a brother in Karachi,

Pakistan, in March 2003 when men, who were not in uniform,

burst into the apartment late one night and put hoods over

the heads of Khan, his brother Mohammad and his brother's

wife. The couple's 1-month-old son was also seized.

 

Another brother, Mahmood Khan, who has lived in the United

States since 1989, said in an interview this week that the

four were hustled into police vehicles and taken to an

undisclosed location, where they were separated and held in

windowless rooms. His sister-in-law and her baby remained

together, he said.

 

According to Mahmood, Mohammad said they were questioned

repeatedly by men who identified themselves as members of

Pakistan's intelligence service and others who identified

themselves as US officials. Mohammad's wife was released

after seven days, and he was released after three months,

without charge. He was left on a street corner without

explanation, Mahmood said.

 

Periodically, he said, people who identified themselves as

Pakistani officials contacted Mohammad and assured him that

his brother would soon be released and that they ought not

contact a lawyer or speak with the news media.

 

" We had no way of knowing who had him or where he was, "

Mahmood Khan said this week at the family home outside

Baltimore. He said they complied with the requests because

they believed anything else could delay his brother's release.

 

In Maryland, Khan's family was under constant FBI

surveillance from the moment of his arrest, his brother

said. The FBI raided their house the day after the arrest,

removing computer equipment, papers and videos. Each family

member was questioned extensively and shown photographs of

terrorism suspects that Mahmood Khan said none of them

recognized. For much of the next year, he said, they were

followed everywhere.

 

" Pretty much we were scared, " he said. " We live in this

country. We have everything here. "

 

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

 

 

" Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England,

nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the

leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter

to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship,

or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ... Voice or no voice, the people

can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have

to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for

lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any

country. "

- General Herman Goering, President of German Reichstag & Nazi Party, Commander

of Luftwaffe