{"id":230438,"date":"2023-02-27T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=230438"},"modified":"2023-02-27T06:12:08","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T06:12:08","slug":"lessons-from-majid-khans-release-from-guantanamo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/02\/lessons-from-majid-khans-release-from-guantanamo\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from Majid Khan\u2019s Release from Guant\u00e1namo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Majid Khan in 1999, during his senior year in high school in Maryland.
Photo via Center for Constitutional Rights\/Khan family<\/p><\/div>\n

An interview with the attorney for the former al Qaeda operative, who testified to the CIA\u2019s \u2018enhanced interrogation\u2019 and more torture at the prison camp.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

16 Feb 2023 – <\/em>On February 2, U.S. prisoner and former al Qaeda courier Majid Khan was released from the Guant\u00e1namo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba after more than sixteen years of imprisonment. \u201cWe are very pleased with Majid\u2019s release,\u201d says J. Wells Dixon, a senior staff attorney at the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights<\/a> (CCR).<\/p>\n

\u201cMajid\u2019s transfer to Belize is the culmination of nearly twenty years of work by the CCR and the law firm Jenner & Block<\/a>,\u201d Dixon tells The Progressive<\/em> \u201cOur only regret is that he was not released sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n

On October 7, 2001, in the wake of the 9\/11 attacks, the United States, together with Great Britain, launched<\/a> \u201cOperation Enduring Freedom,\u201d the war in Afghanistan and the beginning of the \u201cglobal war on terror<\/a>.\u201d It was followed, in March 2003,\u00a0by the U.S.<\/em>\u00a0invasion of Iraq ostensibly to end Saddam Hussein\u2019s dictatorship and to destroy his alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD).<\/p>\n

On January 11, 2002, the first twenty detainees were delivered from CIA black sites to the Guant\u00e1namo military prison, known as Camp X-Ray, on the island of Cuba. Over the following two decades, approximately 780 detainees would be held there. Today, thirty-four detainees remain imprisoned<\/a> in the detention facility. Most troubling, this prison held more than 150 innocent men<\/a>\u00a0for years. The Guant\u00e1namo prison and associated military courts currently cost<\/a> U.S. taxpayers about $540 million a year (with about $13.5 million being spent on each detainee).<\/p>\n

Khan was born in Pakistan, where he lived as a child, and later grew up in a\u00a0suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. After 9\/11, he returned to Pakistan and became a courier for al Qaeda. He was\u00a0arrested\u00a0in Karachi in March 2003 and spent about three years in CIA black sites. He was then taken to Guant\u00e1namo in September 2006, which is when CCR began to represent him. He was charged by a military commission in 2012, pleaded guilty, and agreed to cooperate with U.S. authorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a story that I have waited almost two decades to tell, so I want to start by thanking you for taking the time to listen to my statement,\u201d Khan begins<\/a> in his October 2021 personal statement<\/a> before his sentencing by a Guant\u00e1namo military commission. Khan said, \u201cI want you to know what I did, what happened to me, and what I hope for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khan\u2019s testimony was also included in a report by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He was the first former prisoner of a CIA black site to openly describe the violent and cruel\u00a0torture he suffered under what was infamously dubbed<\/a> \u201cenhanced interrogation.\u201d\u00a0\u201cThe more I cooperated and told them, the more I was tortured,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Committee\u2019s report<\/a> was approved on December 13, 2012,\u00a0but not declassified until 2014.<\/p>\n

Kahn admitted to helping finance the 2003 bombing of a Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, that killed eleven people. The Senate report notes<\/a> that he was \u201can operative who could enter the United States easily and was tasked to research attacks against U.S. water reservoirs.\u201d And, according<\/a> to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered to be the principal architect of the 9\/11 attacks, Khan was \u201cto deliver $50,000 to individuals working for a suspected terrorist leader named Hambali, the leader of al-Qaida\u2019s Southeast Asian affiliate known as \u2018J-I.\u2019 . . . Khan confirmed that the money had been delivered to an operative named Zubair . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Khan, the CIA black site had dungeon-like conditions in which he was kept naked with a hood on his head, his arms chained in ways that made sleep impossible. The report chronicles that at the \u201c[b]eginning in March 2004, and continuing until his rendition to U.S. military custody at Guantanamo Bay in September 2006, Majid Khan engaged in a series of hunger strikes and attempts at self-mutilation that required significant attention from CIA detention site personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most alarming was how the CIA responded to these actions:<\/p>\n

Majid Khan was then subjected to involuntary rectal feeding and rectal hydration, which included two bottles of Ensure. Later that same day, Majid Khan\u2019s \u201clunch tray,\u201d consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins, was \u201cpureed\u201d and rectally infused. Additional sessions of rectal feeding and hydration followed. In addition to his hunger strikes, Majid Khan engaged in acts of self-harm that included attempting to cut his wrist on two occasions, an attempt to chew into his arm at the inner elbow, an attempt to cut a vein in the top of his foot, and an attempt to cut into his skin at the elbow joint using a filed toothbrush.<\/p>\n

Majid also said<\/a> during his sentencing that he was raped with a garden hose: \u201cWhile I was hanging for these three days, I recall one instance where I saw a guard or interrogator\u2019s face,\u201d he said. \u201cThis man sexually assaulted me while I was hanging naked. He touched my private parts while we were alone. I told this man to stop and that I wanted to see a lawyer. He responded, \u2018Are you kidding, a lawyer? You are in no man\u2019s land. No one even knows where you are.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBelize\u2019s offer of humanitarian resettlement [for Khan] is a model for other countries to offer [resettlement to] the remaining men.\u201d<\/strong> <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cLet me be very clear, enhanced interrogation techniques are torture. And torture is\u2014and always has been in modern times\u2014illegal,\u201d insists Majid\u2019s attorney, Dixon. \u201cThere is no exception under U.S. and international law for torture. And the torture that was inflicted on Majid was a war crime that should have been\u2014and should in the future be\u2014prosecuted as a criminal act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colonel Douglas K. Watkins, a judge at the Guant\u00e1namo military court, considered Khan\u2019s treatment \u201cshocking.\u201d In his June 2020 ruling on Khan\u2019s case, he wrote<\/a>, \u201cthere is no serious dispute that Mr. Khan was tortured and suffered other illegal pretrial punishment both in CIA detention and at Guantanamo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after the 9\/11 attacks, in November 2001, President George W. Bush issued<\/a> an executive order establishing<\/a> military commissions in Guant\u00e1namo. They had no legal obligation to grant basic U.S. Constitutional protections to prisoners because the prison was outside of the United States. In addition, they did not have to adhere to the Geneva Conventions because these treaties<\/a> did not apply to \u201cunlawful enemy combatants.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court found<\/a> that the system of military commissions that was to be used to try selected prisoners held at Guant\u00e1namo was in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.<\/p>\n

Dixon points out that \u201cwhen Majid Khan was brought to Guant\u00e1namo in September 2006, the assumption by the Bush Administration was that the U.S. military would go along with what the CIA had done, and would help to cover up what the CIA had done.\u201d He then adds, \u201cBut when push came to shove when Majid got in front of a military judge and a military jury, that military judge said this was torture\u2014and the military jury condemned it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are thirty-four men who remain, and the overwhelming majority of those men have been approved for transfer,\u201d Dixon adds. \u201cBelize\u2019s offer of humanitarian resettlement [for Khan] is a model for other countries to offer [resettlement to] the remaining men.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going further, he notes that \u201cthere [are] a small number of men who are still involved in the military commission system including the so-called 9\/11 defendants\u2014i.e., the five men who are accused of plotting the 9\/11 attacks. So, what do we do about those men?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not involved in those cases but having been through the military-commission system with Mr. Khan,\u201d Dixon argues. \u201cI can say this, the military-commission system has failed to bring anyone to justice for anything through contested proceedings. The only success the military commission system has seen is through guilty pleas like that of Mr. Khan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dixon adds, \u201cMy point is that we will never have accountability for 9\/11 if those cases continue toward trial because they will never get to trial, and if they get to trial, they will be overturned on appeal because of issue of the torture.\u201d He goes further, pointing out, \u201cnegotiated resolutions of the remaining military commission cases is the only way to obtain any modicum of justice and accountability. And it\u2019s the only way Guant\u00e1namo is going to close.\u201d<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>David Rosen of New York City is the author of the book<\/em> Sin, Sex & Subversion: How What Was Taboo in 1950s New York Became America\u2019s New Normal (Skyhorse, 2016).<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – progressive.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

16 Feb 2023 – An interview with the attorney for the former al Qaeda operative, who testified to the CIA\u2019s \u2018enhanced interrogation\u2019 and more torture at the prison camp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":230432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[867,417,133,550,530,1810,1464,1126,1050,950,2462,86,112,1266,572,70,2686,492,481],"class_list":["post-230438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","tag-anglo-america","tag-bullying","tag-cia","tag-corruption","tag-cuba","tag-enhanced-interrogation","tag-guantanamo","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-invasion","tag-military-industrial-media-complex","tag-occupation","tag-pentagon","tag-rendition","tag-torture","tag-usa","tag-war-of-terror","tag-war-on-terror","tag-warfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230438"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230442,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230438\/revisions\/230442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}