Evidence Extracted Through Torture of 9/11 Defendant is Inadmissible

Military Judge Matthew McCall ruled last week that the CIA’s torture of September 11 defendant Ammar al-Baluchi rendered his confessions as inadmissible.  The prosecution failed to prove by a preponderance of evidence that his statements were voluntary and were not obtained by torture.  The statements were made in January 2007, four months after he was transferred from secret overseas CIA locations where he was abused and held in isolation for more than three years.

Ammar al-Baluchi is accused of facilitating the 9/11 attacks by providing money and other assistance to the alleged hijackers.  He is the nephew of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.  He is also the cousin of Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for the 1993 WTC bombing and the Bojinka Plot.

Carol Rosenberg of The New York Times reported, “The CIA routinely beat Baluchi and kept him naked.  Student interrogators took turns slamming his head against a wall.  He was deprived of sleep for 82 straight hours by shackling him at the ankles and wrists in a way that forced him to stand, naked, with a hood on his head.  He was made to fear he would be drowned in a mock waterboarding technique in which he was laid out on a tarp as cold water was poured onto a towel covering his face.”

Judge McCall wrote, “Just as the CIA’s psychologists had planned, (Baluchi) learned that he was helpless to resist the torture, and that cooperation meant a lessening of abuse and an increase in rewards.”

Alka Pradhan, one of al-Baluchi’s lawyers said, “Torture has stained the Guantanamo military commissions since their inception.  This ruling is the only measure of accountability that Mr. al Baluchi has ever received for the brutality he endured, and it is long overdue.”

Why did the US national-security state torture 9/11 defendants such as Ammar al-Baluchi if they had credible evidence obtained through lawful means of their guilt?  Evidence extracted through torture is known to be unreliable because the person who is being tortured is motivated to say whatever he thinks his torturers want him to say, rather than to tell the truth.

Why did the US national-security state deprive the truth of the 9/11 attacks from the victims’ families and the public?  The US national-security state enabled the 9/11 attacks to occur to create a justification to wage wars of aggression in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq in order to achieve their geostrategic objectives.  The US national-security state does not care about the 9/11 victims, their families, or the millions of people that they murdered in the wars of aggression that they launched after 9/11.

12:35 pm on April 17, 2025