Shocker: Gitmo Detainee Claims CIA Torture

As breathlessly reported by the New York Times, always eager to portray the terror vermin sympathetically.

The first of the so-called high-value Guantánamo detainees to have seen a lawyer claims he was subjected to “state-sanctioned torture” while in secret C.I.A. prisons, and he has asked for a court order barring the government from destroying evidence of his treatment.

The request, in a filing by his lawyers, was made on Nov. 29, before officials from the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged that the agency had destroyed videotapes of interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda that current and former officials said included the use of harsh techniques.

Lawyers for the detainee, Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident, released documents in his case on Friday. They claim he “was subjected to an aggressive C.I.A. detention and interrogation program notable for its elaborate planning and ruthless application of torture” to numerous detainees.

The documents also suggest that Mr. Khan, 27, and other high-value detainees are now being held in a previously undisclosed area of the Guantánamo prison in Cuba he called Camp 7.

Those detainees include 14 men, some suspected of being former Qaeda officials, who President Bush acknowledged were held in a secret C.I.A. program. They were transferred to military custody at Guantánamo last year.

Asked about Mr. Khan’s assertions, Mark Mansfield, a C.I.A. spokesman, said, “the United States does not conduct or condone torture.” He said a small number of “hardened terrorists” had required what he called “special methods of questioning” in what he called a lawful and carefully run program.

The documents were heavily redacted by government security officials, and none of Mr. Khan’s specific assertions of torture could be read. One entire page was blacked out.

In addition to the court filing, Mr. Khan’s lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York released recently declassified notes of their first meetings with Mr. Khan, in October. The notes asserted that he had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder because of his treatment, including memory problems and “frantic expression.” They said he was “painfully thin and pale.”