According to US media, a judge at the US military court in Guantanamo Bay determined on Thursday that a Yemeni detainee who was subjected to CIA torture is unable to stand trial in a case involving the death penalty.
Ramzi bin al-Shibh, 51, was supposed to be one of five defendants in a case involving the Al Qaeda attacks on US cities on September 11, 2001, which claimed over 3,000 lives.
However, according to The New York Times, military court Colonel Matthew McCall ruled that the prisoner was too psychologically scarred to assist in his own defense.
Doctors at the US outpost on Cuba’s easternmost tip determined that Bin al-Shibh had delusional disorder, secondary psychotic characteristics, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
According to the Times, the military psychiatrists claimed that because of his illness, he was “unable to understand the nature of the proceedings against him or cooperate intelligently” with his defense team.
Bin al-Shibh has long complained of being “tormented by invisible forces that caused his bed and cell to vibrate and that stung his genitals, depriving him of sleep,” the article continued.
According to Bin al-Shibh’s defense attorney, the CIA tortured his client and caused him to lose his mind using what were known as enhanced interrogation techniques, which included beatings, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and sleep deprivation.
On Friday, he was scheduled to appear in pretrial proceedings alongside three other defendants and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. The article stated that their hearing will go as planned.
The Al Qaeda group in Hamburg, Germany, which hijacked one of the two passenger planes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, was said to have been helped organize by bin al-Shibh.
Another suicide airplane attack targeted the Pentagon in Washington, while passengers aboard a fourth plane forced the hijackers to crash it in a remote area of Pennsylvania.
