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Posted Friday, November 13, 2009 8:23 PM

The CIA on Trial

Newsweek

 

By Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman, and Mark Hosenball

Earlier this year, when justice Department prosecutors began trying to assemble a case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators for orchestrating the 9/11 attacks, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. told them to make it airtight. “I cannot have a case that is not won,” Holder said, a senior Justice official tells NEWSWEEK. But the team agonized over one key question: how to prosecute the detainees without the trial being derailed by embarrassing disclosures about CIA “enhanced interrogation” techniques. For months, Justice officials say, they scoured case files for evidence “untainted” by rough interrogations or other “extralegal” methods. They were so nervous about torture allegations that they even decided against using confessions made to an FBI “clean team” that questioned the detainees after they were transferred from CIA custody to Guantánamo. The reason: prosecutors couldn’t be sure the FBI agents’ questioning wasn’t influenced by information they had previously gleaned from tough CIA treatment.

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By last week, Holder and his deputies were confident they had succeeded, allowing the A.G. to announce that Mohammed and his cohorts will stand trial blocks from the former World Trade Center site. (Holder called Air Force One to inform Asia-bound White House officials of his decision, says the senior Justice official.) “There’s plenty of evidence outside of the torture stuff,” says another senior Justice official familiar with the decision who, like others interviewed, declined to be named talking about delicate deliberations. Among that evidence: wire transfers, phone records, computer files, and videos tying the defendants to the attacks.

But that doesn’t mean the trial won’t be fraught with legal skirmishes about torture—one reason some current and former U.S. spies are livid over Holder’s decision. Even if Justice can carve out a torture-free case, defense lawyers are expected to find creative ways to introduce evidence about abusive treatment, challenging the origins of every document and seeking access to CIA officers who questioned the detainees. The defense could have greater latitude to bring up torture allegations in proceedings to assess the defendants’ mental competence (lawyers for alleged co-conspirator Ramzi bin al-Shibh have already argued that their client was irreparably harmed by sedatives)—and, later on, during a possible sentencing phase when “mitigating factors” can be raised in death-penalty cases. “It borders on the incomprehensible to me,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official says about Holder’s decision. “The agency itself is going be put on trial.” Holder’s team believes it can avoid that. But even so, says a congressional aide familiar with the internal debates, “anybody who believes this is risk-free is not familiar with the process.”

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Member Comments

Posted By: dlr-newsweek (February 7, 2010 at 7:57 PM)

“The agency itself is going be put on trial.”

The agency itself SHOULD be put on trial.    


Posted By: jlgab (December 31, 2009 at 3:05 PM)

How can Obama be responsible for an attempted terrorist attack when that dimwit Bush was not responsible for ALLOWING 11 terrorists on planes?  Idiots!

For a real though rather alarming account concerning national security and our fight against terrorism, read Against All Enemies:Inside America's War On Terror by Richard A. Clarke.

Amazing how GOP's NOW are interested in details on what Obama will do with 2 wars, one of which Bush lied in order to start.  GOP's didn't care about details or the TRUTH when it came to WAR when idiot Bush was in charge.  No exit strategy, no problem.  No weapons of mass destruction, no problem.

Bush pulled the majority of our troops out of Afghanistan and he stopped sending troops to Afghanistan to start his corrupt war in Iraq which he LIED about, hence, CORRUPT war.  And now that vile idiot Cheney and some GOP's think Obama is endangering our troops!  Un_believable!  How dumb can a man be?   I'd rather see our troops alive and out of Iraq than any stupid 'win' title.  In a civilized world, it should not be acceptable to start a war off lies!  


Posted By: smithjeffr (December 9, 2009 at 4:53 PM)

The people held at Gitmo are prisoners of war, not criminals in the sense of the word as it is used in our civilian justice system.  Our civilian justice system is not set up to deal with enemy combatants and war criminals.  For those that criticize Bush for holding these people without charges at Gitmo, I would like to point out that prisoners of war are normally held without any formal charges until the end of the war.  At the end of the war the soldiers are released and repatriated.  Since the war on terror is still ongoing, these people can continue to be held indefinitely.  During war, you do not put the enemies soldiers on trial to see if you should continue to hold them.  It is understood that if they are released they will go back to fighting for their side.  This is why they are held for the duration.  If these people are to be tried at all, it should be by military tribunals for war crimes following the end of the war, whenever that may be.  I am amazed at the bleeding heart liberals posting here who are more concerned about the rights of these soldiers than about potectig the US against terrorism.  What happens if, due to civilian court evidence rules, these people are not convicted.  Are we to release them onto the streets of NYC to carry out more bombings!?!?  We are at war and we need to start acting like it as a unified nation.