GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba: A prisoner accused of plotting al-Qaida’s bombing of the USS Cole warship in 2000 told federal interrogators years later that he was waterboarded by the CIA, an interpreter testified Thursday. But that detail was omitted from the official account of the interrogations that prosecutors want to use at his death-penalty trial as evidence that he confessed.
At issue in the hearings is whether the military judge will accept a 34-page memorandum written by agents who questioned the prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, at Guantánamo Bay for three days in early 2007. The account of the interrogation is considered critical trial evidence. Defence lawyers say it is tainted by torture and want it excluded.
