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Lawyers for a Guantanamo detainee charged with terrorism crimes have asked the U.S. government to preserve overseas locations where he was subjected to "physical and psychological ill-treatment" at secret CIA prisons known as "black sites" until they can inspect them.
The lawyers filed papers Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan seeking a court order to compel the government to preserve the locations so they can inspect them before his trial to see if any statements he gave could have been made voluntarily.
Ahmed Ghailani is charged with participating in the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. The attacks killed 124 people, including 12 Americans. If convicted, he could face the death penalty, though the government has not said whether it will seek it.
Ghailani, a Tanzanian, became the first Guantanamo detainee to be brought to a U.S. civilian court for trial when he arrived in Manhattan last month to face charges in the attacks.
Authorities accused Ghailani of being a bomb-maker, document forger and aide to Osama bin Laden in the nearly simultaneous bombing attacks at embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
He was categorized as a high-value detainee by U.S. authorities after he was captured in Pakistan in 2004.
His lawyers said in the court papers that he was detained by Pakistani police and turned over the U.S. government in August 2004.
They cited a September 2006 speech by President Bush in which he acknowledged for the first time that the CIA runs secret prisons overseas and their own interviews with Ghailani in saying he was kept in secret and held and questioned outside the U.S. by the CIA at a highly classified location known as a "black site."
"It appears undeniable that the defendant was subjected to harsh conditions and harsh interrogation techniques while detained in CIA 'Black Sites,'" the lawyers wrote.
They said "it is believed that the defendant was interrogated and made statements after being subjected to a 'harsh regime employing a combination of physical and psychological ill-treatment with an aim of obtaining compliance and extracting information.'"
The lawyers said it will be another two months before they obtain security clearance necessary to visit the sites, and they fear they will be dismantled by then because the CIA on April 9 indicated it will "decommission" the interrogation locations.
Ghailani was transferred to the detention center at the U.S. naval base in Cuba in 2006.
A government spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday.
The lawyers cited a Red Cross document stating that 14 high value detainees including Ghailani were subjected at "black sites" to various methods of ill-treatment, including simulated water suffocation, prolonged standing, confinement in a box, prolonged nudity, sleep deprivation, extreme temperature exposure, forced shaving and deprivation of solid food.
