Allegations of Torture Lead to Dropped Charges at Gitmo

Amid allegations of torture, the U.S. government has dropped charges for one of six men slated to be tried at Guantanamo, the Saudi captive Mohammed al Qahtani, who had been called 9/11’s “20th hijacker”.

According to a leaked copy of his November-December 2002 interrogation log, U.S. interrogators used sleep deprivation, left him naked or strapped to an intravenous drip without bathroom breaks to get him to confess. They also told him to bark like a dog.

Later, he got a lawyer, Gitanjali Gutierrez of the New York Center for Constitutional Rights, who said he recanted his confession.

Monday night, Gutierrez said the Crawford’s decision to strike her client’s name from the charge sheet was a vindication.

”The dismissal of Qahtani’s charges affirm that everything he said at Guantánamo was extracted through torture — or the threat of torture,” she said.

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Published on May 13, 2008

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