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US wants CIA prisoners 'silent'
04/11/2006 09:02 - (SA)
Washington - The Bush administration has argued that detainees held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to describe in court how they were interrogated, reported the Washington Post on Saturday.
The United States government believes that interrogation methods used by the CIA are among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets, and that their release "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage", said the Post, citing recent court filings.
The government told Judge Reggie Walton that those whom it suspects to be terrorists could incorporate the information into counter-interrogation training.
The government is trying to block access to 14 detainees transferred from secret prisons to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in September.
An attorney for the family of one of the detainees, 26-year-old Majid Khan, responded in a court document that there was no evidence that Khan had top-secret information, reported the Post.
"The executive is attempting to misuse its classification authority ... to conceal illegal or embarrassing executive conduct," wrote lawyer Gitanjali Gutierrez, according to the Post.
The government argued that detainees such as Khan had no right to speak to a lawyer under the new Military Commissions Act, which established separate military trials for terrorism suspects, said the Post.
The government was also concerned that lawyers could pass information back and forth for detainees.
Captives who have spent time in CIA prisons have said that they were treated harshly with techniques like "waterboarding", which simulates drowning, said the Post.
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