Saudi detainee was tortured in GITMO, says official

Washington, Jan.14 (ANI): A Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo Bay has claimed that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the September 11, 2001, attacks.

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani.His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution, the Washington Post quoted ," Susan J. Crawford, a senior Bush administration official, as saying.

"The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual," she told the Post. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for," she added.

Interrogation techniques used on Qahtani included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold. He was hospitalized twice.

Qahtani, allegedly planned to be the plot's 20th hijacker, was interrogated from November 2002 to January 2003 after being captured in Afghanistan. (ANI)