This text was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Heart on Disaster Reporting.
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — After 183 rounds of waterboarding, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the person accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults, spent his years in C.I.A. detention as a captivating captive who dabbled in Islamic mysticism and engaged in pleasantries with the psychologist who waterboarded him, that psychologist informed a struggle crimes prosecutor on Thursday.
James E. Mitchell, who as a contractor for the C.I.A. helped develop the company’s interrogation program and dealt with all of the waterboarding, stated Mr. Mohammed managed so properly in his final three years within the secret prisons after the violent questioning had ended that the 2 males would sit and maintain fingers, as Center Japanese males generally do.
He stated Mr. Mohammed placed on a “appeal initiative” and described him as a well-adjusted detainee who by no means expressed concern of him, gave the psychologist a nickname, “Abu Captain,” and sought his assist in bettering his circumstances as he was moved by way of the completely different C.I.A. black websites.
Mr. Mohammed’s lawyer rejected Dr. Mitchell’s account, saying his shopper was motivated by concern in coping with the psychologist.
Dr. Mitchell provided his description in response to questioning by a prosecutor, Jeffrey D. Groharing. Dr. Mitchell stated that he had assessed Mr. Mohammed and 4 different males accused of conspiring within the 9/11 assaults to be of sound thoughts when he noticed them within the black websites.
Dr. Mitchell described visiting the websites, the place his contracting agency offered the guards, and stated he detected no indicators of flashbacks, nightmares or apathy by the 5 males, who’re scheduled to go to trial on Jan. 11, 2021. Protection legal professionals sought Dr. Mitchell’s testimony to help the judge decide whether the men were tortured and whether or not solutions they gave to F.B.I. brokers a number of months after their switch to Guantánamo in 2006 had been voluntary. Involuntary admissions are forbidden in struggle crimes trials.
For eight days, protection legal professionals used C.I.A. cables from the black websites to query Dr. Mitchell in regards to the interrogation program he designed to stress Qaeda suspects to reply C.I.A. questions through the use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and strategies often called short-shackling and walling.
The lawyer for one defendant, Walid bin Attash, who was captured with a prosthetic leg from a struggle wound, confirmed on Thursday C.I.A. cables describing his shopper as being saved nude and shackled standing on his solely leg throughout an extended stretch of sleep deprivation. It included a C.I.A. medical officer’s measurements of the swelling of his foot, ankle and calf.
Dr. Mitchell stated he by no means noticed the person throughout that interval. In response to the prosecutor, he testified that Mr. bin Attash was a well-adjusted, proud warrior when he caught up with him later.
Mr. bin Attash stated that earlier than the Sept. 11 assaults, he helped blow up the Great Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, a World Heritage web site, Dr. Mitchell stated.
At problem within the pretrial proceedings is whether or not the defendants had been so completely broken by torture after they arrived at Guantánamo in 2006 that they had been helpless to do something however inform F.B.I. brokers what they needed to listen to.
Dr. Mitchell and his associate, John Bruce Jessen, designed and carried out the interrogation program. Whereas he was held in a secret C.I.A. jail in Poland in March 2003, Mr. Mohammed was waterboarded, disadvantaged of sleep and had his head slammed in opposition to a wall.
Dr. Mitchell defined this system this manner: As soon as the C.I.A. prisoners understood that resistance could be met with violence, they cooperated throughout subsequent years of questioning.
A lot so, Dr. Mitchell stated, that for a time earlier than the defendants had been despatched to Guantánamo, they had been assembled at a single C.I.A. black web site in isolation and unaware that the others had been there. Interrogators may go to every cell with the identical {photograph} for identification.
Dr. Mitchell stated he referred to as the place T3, for Terrorist Assume Tank.
He described the purpose of the interrogations and debriefings as getting uncooked intelligence about impending plots and Qaeda associates for intelligence slightly than prosecutorial functions.
Mr. Mohammed, Dr. Mitchell stated, volunteered earlier than he was waterboarded — however after he was brutally interrogated in Afghanistan — that he was liable for the Sept. 11 assaults that killed 2,976 individuals in New York, Pennsylvania and on the Pentagon.
With Mr. Mohammed sitting impassively in courtroom, his lawyer, David Nevin, reeled off a collection of actions that his shopper related to Dr. Mitchell: taking custody of him quickly after rectal abuse, waterboarding him and threatening to kill his youngster. Mr. Nevin prompt that Mr. Mohammed was good to Dr. Mitchell as a result of he was afraid of him.
“He by no means as soon as complained to me about my relationship with him,” Dr. Mitchell stated. “I introduced him as many good issues as unhealthy issues. That disrupts that form of classical conditioning.”
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