Word: qahtani
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...wonder that Gutierrez's client would be worried. He is Mohammed al-Qahtani, the Saudi thought by U.S. counterterrorism officials to be the so-called 20th hijacker, the would-be fifth terrorist on the flight that crashed in a Pennsylvania field on 9/11. In a June 20, 2005, cover story, TIME chronicled part of the interrogation of al-Qahtani, based on a highly classified log kept at Guantánamo over a 50-day period in the winter of 2002-03. The 84-page log, available in full on TIME.com showed U.S. interrogators using a wide range of tactics...
Having spent more than 30 hours in December and January speaking through an interpreter with al-Qahtani at Guantánamo, Gutierrez, the first person to report publicly on his mind-set since his story broke, says he now recants his previous incriminating statements, claiming they were extracted under extreme duress. That may not be surprising. Nor was Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman's response: that "the al-Qaeda training manual specifically encourages those captured to make false claims of abuse." But the more that becomes known about the al-Qahtani case--a unique window into the otherwise secretive practices at Guant?...
...major case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to be argued on March 22 - a case that many observers believe will ultimately end up in front of the Supreme Court - the government is expected to argue that the reliability of statements like al-Qahtani's should not even be considered...
...Lawyers for detainees fingered by al-Qahtani strenuously object to that evidence. And a growing number are challenging the government, claiming that al-Qahtani's information was extracted under torture and is, therefore, unreliable and inadmissible in court...
...before a military commission. "The issue in this court case is critically important because if the government has its way, Guantanamo will be returned to a legal black hole," contends Eric M. Freedman, a professor of constitutional law at Hofstra University and legal consultant to detainees, though not al-Qahtani. "It would be an outrage if evidence being used to hold prisoners was extracted by unconscionable methods and that fact did not come to light in a court of law." For the Pentagon's part, a spokesperson told TIME that "it is longstanding Department of Defense policy to treat...