The Pentagon has dropped charges against a Saudi man held at Guantanamo who was was at the center of the military’s controversial torture program. Mohammed al-Qahtani was accused of being the so-called twentieth hijacker in the September 11 attacks. In 2006, al-Qahtani recanted a confession he said he made after he was tortured and humiliated at Guantanamo. Al-Qahtani was the subject of a harsh interrogation plan authorized by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The alleged torture included being beaten, restrained for long periods in uncomfortable positions, threatened with dogs, exposed to loud music and freezing temperatures and stripped nude in front of female personnel. On Friday, the convening authority for military commissions, Susan Crawford, dismissed the charges against al-Qahtani. She dismissed the charges without prejudice, meaning they can be filed again later.
from Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/13/headlinesAccording to Andy Worthington, al-Qahtani “also subjected to extreme sexual humiliation (including being smeared with fake menstrual blood by a female interrogator).”
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2008/02/12/six-in-guantanamo-charged-with-911-murders-why-now-and-what-about-the-torture/
…Actually, according to Candace Gorman (attorney for two Guantánamo detainees) several prisoners are suspected of being the “20th hijacker.”
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