Military judge at Guantanamo Bay orders information on CIA secret prisons

18 April 2014, 00:41 -- A military judge at Guantanamo Bay has ordered the US government to turn over information on secret CIA interrogation centers connected to the trial of the alleged mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole bombing.

Judge James Pohl instructed the government to reveal names, dates and locations of 'black sites' where Saudi suspect Abd Rahim al-Nashiri was held between his arrest in 2002 and his transfer to the notorious Guantanamo detention center in 2006.

Pohl's order was first reported by the Miami Herald newspaper.

Nashiri's lawyer Rick Kammen told AFP in an email that the order 'directs the government to provide a huge amount of material pertaining to the RDI (Rendition, Detention, Interrogation) program.'

Kammen said he did not know the US government's response to the order.

Speaking about the matter at a press conference related to preliminary hearings of alleged September 11, 2001 plotters, prosecutor Mark Martins said: 'The ruling came out on Monday. I can't say what we're doing.

'We will comply with the ruling of law, with our discovery obligations, we take that very seriously.'

Lawyers for the five 9/11 suspects being held at Guantanamo have said their clients were subjected to 'enhanced interrogation techniques' at CIA sites and have requested a similar ruling in their cases.

Jay Connell, representing Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, the nephew of self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said Pohl had ordered release of nine categories of information.

These, he said, included a chronology of locations, the identities of the personnel involved, standard operating procedures and requests - as well as subsequent approval - to use enhanced interrogation techniques.

'It is important to know what happened, who did it, where did it happen, who authorized it, who knew about it and what was the results,' Connell said.

Connell added he had so far not had access to any of the 10.2 million pages of documents related to the CIA's RDI program which had been made available to the US Senate's Intelligence Committee.

Nashiri faces the death penalty if convicted over the bombing of the US warship in Yemen 14 years ago which left 17 people dead. He is also accused in the attack on a French oil tanker, the Limburg, in 2002, which left one crew member dead.

Source: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_18/ Military-judge-at-Guantanamo-Bay- orders-information-on-CIA-secret-prisons-7993/