9/11 suspect at Guantanamo ruled mentally unfit to face trial

On Thursday, a military judge ruled that one of the five defendents accused of conspiracy in connection with the September 11 terrorist attacks is unfit to stand trial. Col. Matthew McCall determined that Ramzi bin al-Shibh, 51, suffered from delusions that rendered him unable to fully understand the proceedings. His lawyers alleged that treatment he received at the hands of the CIA was to blame.

This comes after the Pentagon alerted families of those Americans killed in the September 11 attacks that pleas deals may be broached with those who remain detained awaiting trial for their alleged role in that terrorist action. Part of their reasoning for this was that they say the suspects were harshly interrogated, to the point of torture, when the US was trying to get information on the worst terror attack on American soil in the nation's history.

Al-Shibh has been accused of helping organize a cell of terrorists in Hamburg, Germany whose leader flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center. He was arrested in 2002 and transferred to Guantanamo Bay four years later. He and four other alleged accomplices, including the man accused of being the mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, were arraigned in 2012. The trial for the remaining suspects will go on as planned without Al-Shibh.
 

"The totality of the facts demonstrates an accused who is wholly focused on his delusions," McCall wrote in his decision. "Again and again, he focuses his counsel's work on stopping his delusional harassment, [which] demonstrates the impairment of his ability to assist in his defense."

On August 24 the Defense Health Agency's Sanity Board ruled that Al-Shibh suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder and a delusional disorder with "secondary pyschotic features," thus was "unable to understand the nature of the proceedings against him or cooperate intelligently in his defense."

As the New York Times reports, Al-Shibh has claimed for years that he was being harassed by an invisible force that, among other things, caused his bed and cell to vibrate and stung his genitals to prevent him from sleeping.

His lawyers claimed that during the period of time between Al-Shibh's arrest and arrival at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA held him in solitary confinement and tortured him. Lead attorney David Bruck attested that Al-Shibh's "complex delusions and hallucinations" were "omnipresent" at their meetings. 

The accused terrorist's case will continue if his mental health improves.