Seven U.S. military officers, who heard graphic descriptions last week of the brutal treatment of a Pakistani detainee at the hands of CIA, have urged that he be granted clemency in a letter addressed to the officer who will review the case, The New York Times reported Monday.
The officers, all but one member of an eight-member military jury, condemned the U.S. government’s conduct in the letter on behalf of Majid Khan, a Baltimore high school graduate turned Qaeda courier.
“Mr. Khan was subjected to physical and psychological abuse well-beyond approved enhanced interrogation techniques, instead of being closer to torture performed by the most abusive regimes in modern history,” the jury members wrote in a letter addressed to the Arkansas National Guard’s Colonel Jeffrey Wood, the convening authority of the military commission.
“This abuse was of no practical value in terms of intelligence, or any other tangible benefit to U.S. interests.
Instead, it is a stain on the moral fiber of America; the treatment of Mr. Khan in the hands of U.S. personnel should be a source of shame for the U.S. government,” they continued, according to The Times.
The harsh rebuke comes after the Guantanamo Bay detainee testified last Thursday on the abuse he suffered while in the CIA’s overseas prison network between 2003 and 2006.
He said he had been subjected to waterboarding, forced enemas and feedings, as well as other forms of sexual and physical abuse.—APP
