WASHINGTON, Nov 4: The US government has asked a federal court not to allow suspects kept at secret CIA cells to disclose how they were interrogated, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.
In papers submitted on Oct 26 to Judge Reggie B. Walton, the government said that the suspects should not be allowed to describe CIA’s interrogation techniques either in a court or “even before their own attorneys”.
“Those interrogation methods are now among the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets and … their release — even to the detainees’ attorneys — could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage,” the US government argued.
“Terrorists could use the information to train in counter-interrogation techniques and foil government efforts to elicit information about their methods and plots.”
The government is trying to block access to 14 detainees transferred in September from the secret prisons to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The detainees described as ‘high-value’ terror suspects include Majid Khan, a Pakistani citizen, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammad and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, both born in Balochistan (Pakistan) but raised in Kuwait.
Mohammed is considered the alleged mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.
An attorney for the family of one of those detainees, 26-year-old Khan, responded in a court document that there was no evidence that he has top-secret information.
“The executive is attempting to misuse its classification authority ... to conceal illegal or embarrassing executive conduct,” lawyer Gitanjali Gutierrez wrote.
Captives who have spent time in CIA prisons have said they were sometimes harshly treated with techniques like “water-boarding”.
Although the secret cells were established soon after 9/11, the US government acknowledged their existence on Sept 7 this tear when President Bush disclosed that some terror suspects had been sent to Guantanamo.
Mr Bush said the prisons were a vital tool in the war on terror and that information obtained from them had saved lives.
