Sadly, He Failed

Maybe they ought to get him some nice sharp razors and let him get to work.

Alleged 9/11 "20th hijacker" tried suicide - lawyer

A Saudi citizen who allegedly intended to be the "20th hijacker" on Sept. 11 tried to kill himself last month at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after learning he faced charges that could carry the death penalty, his lawyer said on Monday.

The prisoner, Mohammed al Qahtani, cut himself at least three times in early April, once deeply enough to produce "profuse bleeding" that required hospital treatment, said attorney Gitanjali Gutierrez.

Qahtani apparently thought his execution was imminent and had a mental breakdown. "He lost all hope and really had a very direct psychological reaction to all of this," Gutierrez said.

A spokeswoman for the detention center declined to comment, citing a policy against discussing specific conditions of individual detainees.

Prosecutors filed charges against Qahtani in February, requesting the death penalty if he is convicted of conspiring with al Qaeda to crash hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

The Pentagon official overseeing the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals dropped the charges on May 13 without giving a reason but reserved the right to file them again later.

Gutierrez said she learned of the suicide attempt during an April visit to the prison camp at a U.S. naval base in Cuba. She said the military had just given clearance for her to publicly discuss notes taken during that visit.

U.S. government officials said Qahtani had intended to join the 19 hijackers who commandeered four passenger planes and crashed them on Sept. 11, but that an immigration agent denied him entry into the United States at a Florida airport.

Held at Guantanamo for more than six years, Qahtani was the subject of a "special interrogation plan" approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2002. It included beatings, sleep deprivation, extended isolation, threats against him and his family, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, cold temperatures, loud music and being chained in painful positions for long periods, according to publicly leaked interrogation logs.

He was forced to bark like a dog and pick up trash with his hands cuffed while he was called "a pig," Gutierrez said.

Oh well.

Notice how Reuters refers to this piece of garbage as the alleged "20th hijacker," yet accept at face value the word of his very dubious lawyer that he tried to kill himself.

Thanks, AP! Secret Club Gitmo Facility No Longer a Secret

Those foot soldiers in the War on the War on Terror have a real coup today, releasing more secret details about our facilities at Guantanamo Bay.

How did the New York Times not manage to get this scoop?

I've got to say, though, why the hell are we giving interviews to an obviously hostile press and confirming what's supposed to be secret?

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded — a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret.

For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about the maximum-security lockup.

Guantanamo commanders said Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida members, who must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators. They also want the location kept secret for fear of terrorist attack.

Well, so much for that.

Hey, why not just provide coordinates and allow for a Google Earth search?

Many operations have been classified since the detention center opened in January 2002 in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. More than four years passed before the military released even the names of detainees held on this 45-square-mile base in southeast Cuba — and it did so only after the AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

Detainees have been held in Camp Echo and Camps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Journalists cleared by the military have been allowed to tour some of these lockups, where 260 men are held, but aren't allowed to speak to detainees. Some lawmakers and other VIPs have passed through, and the International Red Cross has access, but doesn't divulge details of visits with prisoners.

But the Associated Press will be more than happy to.

Camp 7, where 15 "high-value detainees" are held, is so secret that its very existence was not publicly known until it was mentioned in December by attorneys for Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident who allegedly plotted to bomb gas stations in the United States. Previously, many observers believed the 15 were being held in Camps 5 or 6, which are maximum-security facilities.

"Under the gag order ... we are prohibited from saying anything more about their camp," lawyer Gitanjali Gutierrez, who met with Khan in October, said Tuesday. Most of the lawyers' notes and memos have been stamped "top secret" by the government.

Buzby told the AP he is sharply limiting to a "very few" the number of people who know Camp 7's whereabouts.

Read the rest.

Gutierrez, naturally, works for the CCR and the America-hating Columbia professor and generous Democrat donor Michael Ratner.

Would be nice some day if the media bothered to ask those who've received Ratner's money whether they have a problem taking funds some someone who works so hard on behalf of terrorists.

UPDATE: Ringo the Gringo notes the inmates at Think Progress are wetting themselves over this news.