NY judge rules that Guantanamo detainee is not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder

Judge: Guantanamo detainee not suffering from PTSD

NEW YORK — A Guantanamo Bay detainee awaiting a September trial in a civilian court is trying to frustrate his prosecution by claiming he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and cannot attend court proceedings, a judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said he believes Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani does not suffer from the disorder. He concluded Ghailani was competent for trial.

Kaplan said he believes Ghailani has skipped hearings in the case “at least in part in an effort to frustrate this prosecution rather than in consequence of any reaction” to strip searches that require him to expose private areas of his body.

He said he based his findings in part on his own observations of Ghailani along with a report and live testimony from Katherine Porterfield, a clinical psychologist, as well as a report by Gregory Brian Saathoff, a psychiatrist.

Porterfield testified several weeks ago that Ghailani suffered from the disorder as a result of treatment he received during interrogations at a secret CIA-run camp overseas after his 2004 arrest.

The judge said he read classified reports of mental status examinations made while Ghailani was in the custody of the CIA and the Department of Defense as well as other classified materials.

Ghailani was moved from the CIA camp to Guantanamo in Cuba in 2006. He is awaiting trial in the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

Ghailani was accused by the government of being a bomb maker, document forger and aide to Osama bin Laden, who is also charged in the indictment. Ghailani has pleaded not guilty and has denied knowing that the TNT and oxygen tanks he delivered would be used to make a bomb.

Ghailani’s lawyers have said he was subjected after his arrest to enhanced interrogation for 14 hours over five days. As part of its enhanced interrogation program after the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks, the CIA at one time used 10 harsh methods, including waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning.