Terrorism suspect says he was tortured

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A suspected “high-value” terrorist taken to Guantanamo last year alleges he was tortured in overseas CIA prisons and is suffering physical and psychological trauma as a result, one of his attorneys said Saturday.

Lawyers for Majid Khan have sought a federal court order for the government to preserve any evidence of torture, arguing that evidence of harsh interrogation techniques is key to their client proving he has no ties to al-Qaida. The motion was filed prior to Thursday’s announcement that the agency had destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of two top terror suspects.

Khan, the only U.S. resident among 15 so-called high-value detainees, described the alleged abuse in October during his first meetings with attorneys at the Guantanamo Bay Navy base in Cuba.

He was the first high-value detainee to meet privately with an attorney at Guantanamo.

Wells Dixon, who was not authorized to share details of his client’s account, said Khan had a lot to say about his treatment in CIA custody. “He was subjected to state-sanctioned torture,” Dixon alleged.

A Central Intelligence Agency spokesman denied allegations that it tortured Khan or any others as part of its terror interrogation effort that began in 2002.

Khan, a 1999 graduate of a Baltimore-area high school, was seized in Pakistan in March 2003 and held until last year in secret CIA custody. In September 2006, U.S. authorities transferred him and other high-value detainees to Guantanamo, where they may be charged and face prosecution under a new military tribunal system.

The U.S. has alleged that Khan plotted attacks in the U.S. and Pakistan with one of the group’s most dangerous operatives, Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, including a plan to bomb American gas stations.