http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/14504With His Children Still Missing, KSM’s Torture Continues
By: Jim White Friday November 13, 2009 11:30 am
(Promoted by jasonrosenbaum - Holder has indeed announced this plan, and the torture does indeed continue.)
Attorney General Eric Holder is to be commended for his plan, expected to be announced later this morning, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees at Guantanamo will face charges in federal criminal court in the Southern District of New York. The attacks of 9/11 were an abominable criminal act and should be treated as such.
The treatment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed while in American custody presents problems for his criminal trial. As pointed out by Marcy Wheeler, he was waterboarded 183 times in a period of less than a month. The rules of evidence in federal courts prevent the inclusion of testimony delivered under duress, so any statement made by KSM as a result of waterboarding will be excluded as a matter of law. It seems to me that a good defense attorney will be able to argue that any statement by KSM made against his self-interest at any time after his waterboarding could be considered to be under duress since he remains in the custody of the country responsible for this torture.
Although the waterboarding has stopped, KSM’s torture continues in a very real sense.
Consider this passage from page 51 of the CIA Office of Inspector General report released last August.
The "We’re going to kill your children" most likely was taken seriously by KSM, since his children were captured and transferred to US custody several months before his own capture. No word of the fates of these children has surfaced in the subsequent eight years. Because KSM knows that his children were last known to be in US custody, and because he was told during his interrogation that his children would be killed, it seems to me that any statement KSM would make at his trial would be made under the duress of his children continuing to be threatened with death.
Its the kinds of crimes the asshole Zuckerman has been complicit in and busy covering up for the last eight years that he doesn't want disclosed because it makes him an accessory to the fucking crime. And he knows it. Thats why he is so hysterical.