The US military judge presiding over the Guantanamo prosecution of five alleged conspirators in the September 11 attacks has ruled in favor of a request from government prosecutors to treat as classified and inadmissible any information about the defendant’s experiences as detainees.
The defendants in the 9/11 case, including the alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Pakistani, Yemeni and Saudi captives, face charges that could lead to the death penalty.
But the judge, US Army Col. James Pohl, ruled on December 6 that the defendants are prohibited from disclosing in court anything about their time in the secret CIA detention, rendition and interrogation program, including the torture they were subjected to.
“We are profoundly disappointed by the military judge’s decision, which doesn’t even address the serious First Amendment issues at stake here,” said Hina Shamsi, a director at the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The government wanted to ensure that the American public would never hear the defendants’ accounts of illegal CIA torture, rendition, and detention,” she said in a statement. “The military judge has gone along with that shameful plan.”
Ms. Shamsi said the ACLU would attempt to appeal the ruling.
“For now, the most important terrorism trial of our time will be organized around judicially approved censorship of the defendants’ own thoughts, experiences, and memories of CIA torture,” she said. “The decision undermines the government’s claim that the military commission system is transparent.”
What an amazing crock of BS. Thanks for keeping us posted on the latest @#@#, John.
Likewise for me John…. Thanks for reporting on the cover-ups of 911 torture and FAKE confessions…
Yer th'Man………!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So they torture them until they say what the gov. wants them to,say….. Then….later they can't say in court how the fafe acknowledgments were EXTRACTED…!!! Star Chamber Stuff…!!!!!
Perhaps a logical development! At first the US' CIA were alarmed over the successes of Stalin torture, to make victims confess in public courts. Then the CIA started a quite scientific and systematic research into effective torture, that includes the victims' selfdestroying of their own personality. (Money for such research was for some years handed out by The Institute for Human Ecology. A CIA forgery, of course. )
The victory over communism is now complete, with US judges playing willingly fiddle to the torture tunes of the grotesque culture, the politicians have nurtured.
Roland Freisler would feel right at home in the American military justice system.
That's a US judge: his task is to say that the cops and Government are always right.
When the torturer is also government, judge, executioner and final arbiter on what is and what isn't "allowed" then this is tyranny and nothing less. What did the founders say about something such as this? I think we all know the answer because if we don't then it won't be long and this will be standard operating procedure upon the rest of us.
Just can't make this stuff up . If anyone would have told any of these to our grand parents ; they would have locked you up for being paranoid !!!
I don't know any reasoning person who has been paying attention who believes that the military commission system was ever designed to be transparent. The obvious purpose was to hide the illegalities perpetrated by the USG and protect those who authorized such…and it has worked perfectly so far.
no detention or torture, what is left???
One only has to read the cases referred to the Innocence Project whereby DNA was used to save dozens of innocent people from death row that confessions obtained under torture and excessive duress are unreliable.
traffic court to ban mention of automobiles.