The New York Instances was
first to report the letter.Majid Shoukat Khan is considered one of 39 detainees who nonetheless stays on the navy jail in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Khan was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and was held for greater than three years at secret CIA prisons often known as “black websites.” Khan’s attorneys have mentioned that
he suffers “extreme bodily and psychological trauma from which he’s unlikely ever to recuperate totally” because of the torture.
Khan, a local of Pakistan who went to highschool in Baltimore, Maryland, was held by the US authorities with out being charged till 2012. He
pleaded guilty in 2012, as part of a deal that required him to testify in opposition to different detainees. After being convicted, he didn’t obtain a last sentencing till October 2021, the panel’s letter mentioned.
“Though designated an ‘alien unprivileged enemy belligerent,’ not technically afforded the rights of US residents, the entire disregard for the foundational ideas upon which the Structure was based is an affront to American values and ideas of justice,” the letter mentioned.
The panel members additionally ask for clemency due to the extent to which Khan was tortured whereas in US authorities custody.
“Mr. Khan was topic to bodily and psychological abuse nicely past accredited enhanced interrogation strategies, as an alternative being nearer to torture carried out by probably the most abusive regimes in trendy historical past,” the letter mentioned. “It’s a stain on the ethical fiber of America.”
It added: “The remedy of Mr. Khan within the palms of US personnel needs to be a supply of disgrace for the US authorities.”
Khan final week gave an account of the torture he skilled whereas in US custody, the primary time a detainee who was tortured within the CIA enhanced interrogation strategies program has completed so in public. The New York Instances
first reported the testimony from Khan in entrance of the navy decide and navy jury panel on the warfare courtroom in Guantánamo Bay.
The US accused Khan of serving to al Qaeda plan assaults in the USA and elsewhere and conspiring with
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind behind the September 11 terrorist assaults. The US additionally accused Khan of giving $50,000 in al Qaeda funds to a Southeast Asia-based al Qaeda affiliate, which then gave the cash to Jemaah Islamiyah to fund the August 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott Resort in Jakarta, Indonesia.
