I stole this from the boxing thread:
Silence of 4 Terror Probe Suspects Poses Dilemma
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 21, 2001; Page A06
FBI and Justice Department investigators are increasingly frustrated by the silence of
jailed suspected associates of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, and some are
beginning to that say that traditional civil liberties may have to be cast aside if they are to
extract information about the Sept. 11 attacks and terrorist plans.
More than 150 people rounded up by law enforcement officials in the aftermath of the
attacks remain in custody, but attention has focused on four suspects held in New York
who the FBI believes are withholding valuable information.
FBI agents have offered the suspects the prospect of lighter sentences, money, jobs, and
a new identity and life in the United States for them and their family members, but they
have not succeeded in getting information from them, according to law enforcement
sources.
"We're into this thing for 35 days and nobody is talking," a senior FBI official said,
adding that "frustration has begun to appear."
Said one experienced FBI agent involved in the investigation: "We are known for
humanitarian treatment, so basically we are stuck. . . . Usually there is some incentive,
some angle to play, what you can do for them. But it could get to that spot where we
could go to pressure . . . where we won't have a choice, and we are probably getting
there."
Among the alternative strategies under discussion are using drugs or pressure tactics,
such as those employed occasionally by Israeli interrogators, to extract information.
Another idea is extraditing the suspects to allied countries where security services
sometimes employ threats to family members or resort to torture.
Under U.S. law, interrogators in criminal cases can lie to suspects, but information
obtained by physical pressure, inhumane treatment or torture cannot be used in a trial. In
addition, the government interrogators who used such tactics could be sued by the victim
or charged with battery by the government.
The four key suspects, held in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center, are
Zacarias Moussaoui, a French Moroccan detained in August initially in Minnesota after
he sought lessons on how to fly commercial jetliners but not how to take off or land
them; Mohammed Jaweed Azmath and Ayub Ali Khan, Indians traveling with false
passports who were detained the day after the World Trade Center and Pentagon
attacks with box cutters, hair dye and $5,000 in cash; and Nabil Almarabh, a former
Boston cabdriver with alleged links to al Qaeda.
Questioning of "the two with the box cutters and others have left us wondering what's the
next phase," the FBI official said.
One former senior FBI official with a background in counterterrorism said recently, "You
can't torture, you can't give drugs now, and there is logic, reason and humanity to back
that." But, he added, "you could reach a point where they allow us to apply drugs to a
guy. . . . But I don't think this country would ever permit torture, or beatings."
He said there was a difference in employing a "truth serum," such as sodium pentothal,
"to try to get critical information when facing disaster, and beating a guy till he is
senseless."
"If there is another major attack on U.S. soil, the American public could let it happen,"
he said. "Drugs might taint a prosecution, but it might be worth it."
Even some people who are firm supporters of civil liberties understand the pressures that
are developing.
David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who obtained the
release of Middle Eastern clients after they had been detained for years based on secret
information, said that in the current crisis, "the use of force to extract information could
happen" in cases where investigators believe suspects have information on an upcoming
attack.
"If there is a ticking bomb, it is not an easy issue, it's tough," he said.
Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel during the Clinton administration, wrote
recently that the Supreme Court distinguished terrorism cases from cases where lesser
threats are involved. He noted that five justices in a recent deportation case recognized
that the "genuine danger" represented by terrorism requires "heightened deference to the
judgments of the political branches with respect to matters of national security."
Former attorney general Richard L. Thornburgh said, "We put emphasis on due process
and sometimes it strangles us."
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, he said, "legally admissible evidence in court may not be the
be-all and end-all." The country may compare the current search for information to
brutal tactics in wartime used to gather intelligence overseas and even by U.S. troops
from prisoners during military actions.
Extradition of Moussaoui to France or Morocco is a possibility, one law enforcement
official said. The French security services were quick to leak to journalists in Paris that
they had warned the CIA and FBI in early September, before the attacks, that
Moussaoui was associated with al Qaeda and had pilot training.
The leak has irritated U.S. investigators in part because "it was so limited," one FBI
official said. "Maybe we should give him [Moussaoui] to them," he said, noting that
French security has a reputation for rough interrogations.
The threat of extradition to a country with harsh practices does not always work.
In 1997, Hani Abdel Rahim al-Sayegh, a Saudi citizen arrested in Canada and
transferred to the United States under the promise that he would tell about the bombing
of the Khobar Towers military barracks in Saudi Arabia, refused to cooperate in the
investigation when he got here.
The FBI threatened to have al-Sayegh sent back to Saudi Arabia, where he could have
faced beheading, thinking it would get him to talk. "He called their bluff and went back,
was not executed and is in jail," a government official said.
Robert M. Blitzer, former chief of the FBI counterterrorism section, said offers of
reduced sentences worked to get testimony in the cases of Ahmed Ressam, caught
bringing explosives into the country for millennium attacks that never took place, and Ali
Mohammed, the former U.S. Army Green Beret who pleaded guilty in the 1998
embassy bombings and provided valuable information about al Qaeda.
The two former al Qaeda members who testified publicly in the 1998 bombing trials
were resettled with their families in the United States under the witness protection
program and given either money or loans to restart their lives.
Torture "goes against every grain in my body," Blitzer said. "Chances are you are going
to get the wrong person and risk damage or killing them." In the end, he said, there has
to be another way. |
