August 2002: Interrogators Ask about Applying More Pressure on Terror Suspect

Military interrogators at Guantanamo begin inquiring about the lengths to which they can go to question suspected terrorists. They are particularly interested in Mohamed al-Khatani, a Saudi captured in the Afghan-Pakistan border region in December 2001 (see December 2001). When they learn that al-Khatani was denied entry to the US in 2001 (see August 4, 2001), they decide he may be the so-called “20th hijacker” for the 9/11 attacks, especially after the FBI cajoles him into confessing to being an al-Qaeda operative (see July 2002). But al-Khatani will not, or cannot, divulge information about upcoming terror attacks, and interrogators want to increase the pressure on him (see August 8, 2002-January 15, 2003). They also wonder if, since they have found one apparently high-level al-Qaeda operative among the crowd of low-level prisoners shipped from Afghanistan, there might be others lurking in the group and pretending to be ordinary peasants. [Savage, 2007, pp. 177-178]