After noting that the government had dropped � ���"almost all� �� � of these allegations, except for the one relating to Bosnia, Judge Kollar-Kotelly stated, witheringly, � ���"the only consistency with respect to [these] allegations is that they repeatedly change over time.� �� � For particular condemnation, she singled out one claim that the feast had taken place in August 2001 (when al-Rabiah was in Kuwait, before his return to Afghanistan in October 2001), amongst other more outlandish claims, including an absurd allegation that al-Rabiah had trained the 9/11 hijackers.

As with the first supposed eyewitness, Judge Kollar-Kotelly noted that there were � ���"multiple exhibits in the record demonstrating [his] unreliability as a witness� �� � (although, sadly, the exact number of prisoners against whom he had made verifiably false allegations was redacted), and concluded that, although the many � ���"inconsistencies and impossibilities� �� � in his statements � ���"raise, at a minimum, a serious question about [his] mental capacity to accurately make allegations against al-Rabiah,� �� � the government � ���"did not address them at the Merits Hearing� �� � in August.

After dismissing a third supposed eyewitness, because he had withdrawn his allegation (which was redacted) several months after making it, Judge Kollar-Kotelly dismissed a fourth, even though it was � ���"undisputed� �� � that al-Rabiah actually had contact with him in Afghanistan. Despite redactions, it seems that this man was Maher al-Quwari, and that his statement involved second-hand hearsay about al-Rabiah being seen with a gun. While this was sufficiently weak for the judge not to accept it without further corroboration, she also made a point of discounting it because the supposed witness only � ���"made this allegation while he was undergoing a cell relocation program at Guantà �namo called the � ��˜frequent flier program,' which prevented a detainee such as [redacted] from resting due to frequent cell movements.� �� �

While the description of a � ���"cell relocation program� �� � sounds relatively benign, Judge Kollar-Kotelly made a point of noting that it was, in fact, a program of sleep deprivation, adding that, � ���"According to a report published by the Senate Armed Services Committee concerning the treatment of detainees in United States custody, sleep deprivation was not a technique that was authorized by the Army Field Manual.� �� � Although she also noted that � ���"sleep deprivation became authorized at Guantà �namo by the Secretary of Defense on April 16, 2003, the guidance issued by the Commander of USSOUTHCOM on June 2, 2003 prohibited the use of sleep deprivation for more than � ��˜four days in succession,'� �� � whereas the supposed witness's � ���"allegation against al-Rabiah was made after one week of sleep deprivation in the program, and he did not repeat this allegation either before or after the program.� �� �

False confessions obtained through torture

Despite ruling out all of the government's supposed eyewitnesses, and noting that the government had withdrawn � ���"most of its reliance on these witnesses� �� � by the time of the Merits Hearing, Judge Kollar-Kotelly added that � ���"it is very significant that al-Rabiah's interrogators apparently believed these allegations at the time they were made, and therefore sought to have al-Rabiah confess to them� �� � -- despite the well-chronicled unreliability of the first two supposed witnesses, the withdrawing of the statement made by the third, and the fact, easily perceived by the judge, that the fourth made his statement only after being subjected to sleep deprivation that exceeded established guidelines and that was, therefore, not only unreliable, but also abusive.

The judge also noted the significance of the evidence in the record indicating that al-Rabiah � ���"subsequently confided in interrogators [redacted] that he was being pressured to falsely confess to the allegations discussed above,� �� � and also the significance of the fact that, although � ���"al-Rabiah's interrogators ultimately extracted confessions from him,� �� � they � ���"never believed his confessions based on the comments they included in their interrogation reports.� �� �

After noting -- again with a palpable sense of incredulity -- that � ���"These are the confessions that the Government now asks the Court to accept as evidence in this case,� �� � Judge Kollar-Kotelly proceeded to demolish them all, breaking them down into three periods: the first, when � ���"there were no allegations directed toward al-Rabiah and al-Rabiah provided no confessions� �� �; the second, when the supposed eyewitnesses � ���"made their now-discredited allegations and al-Rabiah was told of the allegations against him, but al-Rabiah nevertheless made no confessions� �� �; and the third (which, shockingly, continued � ���"until the present� �� �), when � ���"al-Rabiah confessed to the now-discredited allegations against him, as well as to other � ��˜evidence' that interrogators told him they possessed, when, in fact, such evidence did not exist.� �� �

In the first phase, Judge Kollar-Kotelly noted that there was no indication � ���"that interrogators believed al-Rabiah had engaged in any conduct that made him lawfully detainable,� �� � and explained that, � ���"To the contrary, the evidence in the record during this period consists mainly of an assessment made by an intelligence analyst that al-Rabiah should not have been detained.� �� � As discussed in my previous article, this analyst was � ���"a senior CIA intelligence analyst, who, almost uniquely, was also an Arabic expert,� �� � but although I wrote that � ���"it amaze[d] me that no one in the Justice Department, under President Obama, investigated the CIA analyst's report,� �� � the truth, as revealed in the unclassified ruling, is even bleaker.

It transpires that Justice Department officials had read the report, but tried to discredit the analyst's verdict, � ���"arguing that it represented the opinion of only one analyst,� �� � ignoring his well-chronicled expertise, and obliging the judge to point out that, � ���"according to the Government's own evidence, � ��˜[i]ntelligence analysts undergo rigorous tradecraft training [and] employ specific analytical tools to assist them in sorting and organizing various pieces of information,� �� � and are also � ���"trained to recognize and mitigate biases, not only in the information presented to them, but their own cognitive biases as well.� �� �

In the second phase, despite extensive redactions to the ruling, it is clear that al-Rabiah was repeatedly interrogated, although he � ���"express[ed] frustration to FBI agents that he was repeatedly asked, among other questions, whether he had ever seen Osama bin Laden, and remark[ed] that his answer was � ��˜no' and would continue to remain � ��˜no.'� �� � What happened next, in a � ���"new three-pronged approach,� �� � is unknown, as the details are severely redacted, but it � ���"did not result in any confessions. Al-Rabiah repeatedly denied the allegations against him.� �� �

After this, apparently following some kind of advice given to the lead interrogator (by an unknown party whose identity and suggestions were redacted), the interrogators � ���"began using more aggressive interrogation tactics.� �� � Again, the details are redacted, but enough information is available from passages that were not redacted earlier in the ruling to indicate that these � ���"tactics� �� � included sleep deprivation (the � ���"frequent flier program� �� �), which, as I explained in my previous article, led three British men released in March 2004 -- the so-called � ���"Tipton Three,� �� � whose story was dramatized in the film � ���"The Road To Guantà �namo� �� � -- to explain that al-Rabiah was moved every two hours, over an unspecified period of time (but one that clearly exceeded the four-day recommendation by a substantial margin), leaving him � ���"suffering from serious depression, losing weight in a substantial way, and very stressed because of the constant moves, deprived of sleep and seriously worried about the consequences for his children.� �� �

Possibly in reference to the use of sleep deprivation (although it could also have been another � ���"enhanced interrogation technique� �� �), Judge Kollar-Kotelly explained that, � ���"Once it became authorized, it could not be used on a detainee until � ��˜the SOUTHCOM Commander ma[de] a determination of � ���"military necessity� �� � and notif[ied] the Secretary [of Defense] in advance' of its use,� �� � and also made a point of noting that � ���"the Government was unable to produce any evidence that [the interrogator] obtained authorization to use the [redacted] technique with al-Rabiah despite requests by the Court at the Merits Hearing for such evidence.� �� �

Although the other techniques are not described, they undoubtedly included some or all of the following -- prolonged isolation, the use of extreme heat and cold, short-shackling in painful stress positions, forced nudity, forced grooming, religious and sexual humiliation, and the use of loud music and noise -- because this whole package of techniques, including sleep deprivation, was approved for use at the highest levels of the Bush administration, as a Senate Committee explained in the detailed report in April this year that was cited by the judge (PDF). The program was based on reverse engineering techniques taught in U.S. military schools (the SERE program -- Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) to train recruits to resist interrogation if captured by enemy forces.

These techniques were acknowledged to be illegal and, moreover, were intended to produce false confessions, but this did not prevent senior Bush officials from pushing for their implementation, and, in al-Rabiah's case, they duly led to his conversion from an innocent man who refused to falsely confess to allegations produced by unreliable witnesses into a modern-day version of the victims of the Spanish Inquisition, the seventeenth century � ���"witches� �� � of Salem and elsewhere, the victims of Stalin's show trials, or the captured U.S. pilots on whom the North Koreans had practiced the techniques adopted by the SERE schools: a broken man prepared not only to falsely confess to any lies put before him, but also prepared to learn these confessions and repeat them as his masters saw fit.

As the ruling makes clear, between redactions, � ���"The following day marked a turning point in al-Rabiah's interrogations,� �� � and � ���"From that point forward, al-Rabiah confessed to the allegations that interrogators described to him.� �� � Despite the extensive redactions, the following passage from the ruling makes clear the full horror of his confessions:

Al-Rabiah's confessions all follow the same pattern: Interrogators first explain to al-Rabiah the � ���"evidence� �� � they have in their possession (and that, at the time, they likely believed to be true). Al-Rabiah then requests time to pray (or to think more about the evidence) before making a � ���"full� �� � confession. Finally, after a period of time, al-Rabiah provides a fill confession to the evidence through elaborate and incredible explanations that the interrogators themselves do not believe. This pattern began with his confession that he met with Osama bin Laden, continued with his confession that he undertook a leadership role in Tora Bora, and repeated itself multiple other times with respect to � ���"evidence� �� � that the Government has not even attempted to rely on as reliable or credible.

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