Government Declassifies Majid Khan Torture Motion

On Friday, January 18, the government made public a motion filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of Majid Khan, a former CIA ghost detainee now held at Guantanamo. The motion and its attached exhibits were heavily redacted by the CIA.

The motion is the latest filed by CCR attorneys in the legal battle to preserve evidence of Majid’s torture while held at a CIA black site and to declare that the interrogation methods used on Majid constitute torture. As in previous motions that have been declassified, all sections that refer to specific interrogation methods used against Majid have been blacked out.

In the motion, CCR attorneys Gitanjali Gutierrez and Wells Dixon also state that the CIA “was demonstrably incorrect” when CIA director Michael Hayden claimed that videotaping of interrogations ended in 2002, and that "other unnamed intelligence officials have made a series of false statements about Khan's imprisonment and torture in CIA custody." The motion continues, "For instance, officials have said that his interrogations were not videotaped; that all videotaping stopped in 2002; and that enhanced interrogation techniques were only used on a small number of prisoners.”

The motion was filed along with three letters handwritten by Majid himself in English (attached at the bottom of the page). In one, he asks the judges to please close their eyes and think of him as a human being.

Most of Exhibit 1, which Majid titled “Internal Feelings,” has been redacted, with only one line remaining. Exhibits 3 and 4 are letters Majid addressed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals judges, portions of which have also been blacked out.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.