Military Judge Throws Out Sept. 11 Case Confession as Obtained Through Torture
A military judge on Friday threw out the confession that a man accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks made to federal agents in 2007 at Guantánamo Bay, ruling the statements were the product of a campaign of torture and isolation carried out by the C.I.A.
The ruling by Col. Matthew N. McCall was the latest setback to prosecutors in their long-running quest to bring the death-penalty case to trial, despite the years the five defendants had spent in secret C.I.A. prisons.
Ammar al-Baluchi, 47, was so thoroughly psychologically conditioned through abuse and threats during his time at the agency's overseas prisons, or black sites, from 2003 to 2006 that he involuntarily incriminated himself in 2007, the judge wrote in a 111-page decision.
Mr. Baluchi, who is charged in the case by the name Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, is accused of sending money and providing other support to some of the hijackers who carried out the attack that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.
He is the nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man accused of masterminding the attack. Mr. Mohammed and two other defendants in the case reached plea agreements with prosecutors that are now being contested in federal court. A fifth defendant was found mentally unfit to stand trial, a condition his lawyer blames on his torture at the hands of the C.I.A.
Testimony derived from C.I.A. documents showed that Mr. Baluchi was routinely kept naked and beaten during his first days of agency custody in a program of 'enhanced interrogation,' which was designed by two psychologists on contract to the C.I.A.
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'The end result should be the same,' allegedly replied David, who was imprisoned for carjacking and robbery. The next day, the complaint says, David instructed Quevedo to tell the attackers: 'Handle that s— with prejudice... You know how that's like a court term? Well, this s— [is] with prejudice.' Quevedo allegedly confirmed it was 'already in motion.' When inmates were let out of their cells at 5:50 the next morning to take a shower, Adrian 'Slick' Bueno, Andrew 'Largo' Shinaia and Jude 'Crazy' Valle entered Abrego's cell, the complaint says. While Michael 'Weasel' Ortiz obstructed a nearby camera, Bueno, Shinaia and Valle beat the rapper and 'sliced' him, prosecutors charged. About five hours later, Quevedo called a woman from jail and asked her to tell David in state prison that 'old boy got his rap session,' according to the complaint. 'They didn't really get a good show,' Quevedo allegedly said. 'Expect them to be performing in probably the 4000 floor' — another area of the jail — 'here soon.' The attempt on Abrego's life was unsuccessful, and by March 2024, the complaint says, Leyva told Joshua 'Demon' Euan in a TikTok message the rapper was recording a live stream outside his family home 'as we speak.' Euan drove to the house at 1 a.m. and sent Leyva a photograph of a gun in the cup-holder of a car, according to the complaint. 'He ain't here,' he wrote to Leyva. Later, Euan allegedly told Leyva he sent people to vandalize Abrego's family home. According to the complaint, he sent photographs of graffiti that read, 'Swifty Blue 187,' a reference to the California penal code section for murder. Euan, 37, eluded arrest Wednesday and remains at large, according to the FBI.
