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US lawyers battling against torture and other abuses at Guantánamo Bay are braced for George Bush issuing last-minute pardons to protect those in his administration most closely implicated.

The lawyers' warning came after a senior member of the Bush administration, Susan Crawford, admitted for the first time that torture had been carried out. Until now, the Bush administration, in particular the vice-president, Dick Cheney, had denied the interrogation techniques at Guantánamo constituted torture.

Crawford's admission of torture is in relation to the case of a Saudi national, Mohammed al-Qahtani, 30, accused of involvement in the 9/11 attack. He is often referred to by US authorities as the "20th hijacker". He was denied entry to the US in August 2001 and captured in Afghanistan in 2002. He was tortured for a month and then kept in isolation.

Crawford, a Pentagon official who last year was put in charge of military commissions that decide whether detainees should be tried, told the Washington Post: "We tortured Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case [for prosecution]." She added: "The techniques they used were all authorised, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent."

Bush can issue a pardon to anyone he chooses between now and leaving office at midday on Tuesday. But lawyers warned yesterday that although such a pardon would prevent the politicians and officials from being prosecuted in the US, they would face the risk of being arrested in other countries, as was President Augusto Pinochet.

Gita Gutierrez, Qahtani's lawyer, said yesterday: "We are all concerned that President Bush will hand out pardons as he leaves office. His closest advisers are those most involved in overseeing torture by US personnel. It may prevent their prosecution in the US but it would not prevent other countries pursuing justice along the lines of Pinochet."

Pinochet, who took power in a coup in Chile in the 1970s, was arrested in Britain in 1998 accused of human rights abuses and held until allowed to go home in 2000 on medical grounds.

Gutierrez, who works for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of Guantánamo's 200-plus inmates, said she thought Qahtani's torture constituted a war crime.

The International Red Cross, the only independent body with access to Guantánamo, does not speak about specific cases, but it said yesterday that in general, acts of torture could amount to war crimes. Red Cross spokesman Simon Schorno said: "The third Geneva convention prohibits any ill treatment of a person held in the context of a conflict."

The US will find it difficult to go ahead with any prosecution of Qahtani given that evidence obtained under torture would be inadmissible. Some within the US have argued that evidence obtained at a later stage and not tainted by torture could still be used. Gutierrez described Qahtani as severely traumatised and suggested he be returned to Saudi Arabia, which runs a rehabilitation programme.

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Americans love torture.  We want to torture.

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This was a flesh-and-blood case: a Saudi, Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was kept in isolation and cold rooms, deprived of sleep, made to do dog tricks and broken by sexual and other humiliations too numerous to list.

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zappaisgod said:

Another cut and paste job with no link.  At any rate:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/us/15detain.html?_r=1

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This was a flesh-and-blood case: a Saudi, Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was kept in isolation and cold rooms, deprived of sleep, made to do dog tricks and broken by sexual and other humiliations too numerous to list.

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The poor baby.

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YawningAnus said:

zappaisgod said:

Another cut and paste job with no link.  At any rate:

why would I really need to add the link? its the same exact story word for word on every news organization.... yes, even fox, if you actually call that a news organization. in fact, its where I heard it first last night, then heard the exact same thing driving home on PRI.

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What, did they scroll that text on TV and you somehow managed to cut and paste it from there?  What's PRI?

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For 160 days his only contact was with the interrogators. Forty-eight of 54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations. Standing naked in front of a female agent. Subject to strip searches. And insults to his mother and sister.”

At one point he was threatened with a military working dog named Zeus, according to a military report. Qahtani “was forced to wear a woman’s bra and had a thong placed on his head during the course of his interrogation” and “was told that his mother and sister were whores.” With a leash tied to his chains, he was led around the room “and forced to perform a series of dog tricks,” the report shows.

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Seuss said:

How times have changed...

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zappaisgod said:

Thanks.  Here's some specifics on how mean they were to the poor little poo.

http://www.anorak.co.uk/media/200142.html

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Crawford says "the techniques. . .used were all authorized but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent." These techniques included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity, and "prolonged exposure to cold." Interrogators also insulted Qahtani's mother and sister, forced him to wear a bra, placed a thong on his head, and made him perform "dog tricks."

Crawford acknowledged that torture is normally thought to entail "some horrendous physical act." However, in this case "it was not one particular act [but] just a combination of things that had a mental impact on him, that hurt his health." In fact, the "medical impact" is what "put her over the edge" in concluding that Qahtani was tortured. Apparently, the terrorist had to be hospitalized when his heart beat dropped to well below 60 beats per minute.

Crawford's application of the "torture" label, then, is based on her subjective view of when a combination of techniques becomes too aggressive and too persistent. Suppose this particular combination had not caused the terrorist's heart beat rate to fall below 60 per minute. In that event, Crawford apparently would not have concluded he was "tortured."

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