Detainee kept on Navy ship

WASHINGTON – A Somali militant linked to al-Qaida was held and interrogated for two months on a U.S. Navy ship – the first publicly known example of the Obama administration secretly detaining a new terror suspect outside the criminal justice system.

Senior administration officials revealed the case Tuesday after an indictment against the man, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, was unsealed in federal court in New York. The indictment, which does not mention Warsame’s military detention, charges that he worked to broker a weapons deal between al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the group’s affiliate in Yemen, and Al Shabab, the Somali militant group. It alleges that he fought on Al Shabab’s behalf in Somalia in 2009, then went to Yemen in 2010 for explosives training and took part in terrorist activities there.

According to administration officials, Warsame was seized April 19 by U.S. forces in international waters while traveling between Yemen and Somalia. He had previously been identified by U.S. intelligence as an important target, the officials said. A second person taken into custody with Warsame was later released, the officials said.

Warsame was turned over to the FBI after extensive “humane” interrogation aboard ship by a unit known as a High Value Interrogation Group, made up of FBI, CIA and Defense Department personnel, the senior officials said. But a U.S. official said CIA officers did not directly question Warsame. After the controversy surrounding Bush-era interrogations of detainees, the CIA has consistently said it has kept its agents away from direct questioning.

Warsame’s detention marks a significant new step for the administration in its handling of terrorism suspects. President Barack Obama pledged during his campaign to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which was designed during the George W. Bush administration as a place to hold detainees outside the reach of U.S. law. Although the administration has not succeeded in closing Guantanamo, it has, until now, not disclosed the existence of any new detainees.

In recent weeks, however, senior officials had suggested that situation was changing. Gen. David Petraeus, in his confirmation hearings to become CIA director, said that he believed the U.S. should find a way to capture and detain militants and hold them someplace other than Guantanamo.

Adm. William McRaven, who is taking over as commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, was asked last week during his confirmation hearings what the U.S. does with militants captured outside Afghanistan.

“In many cases, we will put them on a naval vessel and we will hold them until we can either get a case to prosecute them in U.S. court,” send them to a third country or release them, McRaven said, without providing specifics.

Ship-board detentions had previously been alleged by human rights groups but never confirmed.

Although the Warsame case shows that extra-judicial detentions have resumed, the administration officials who discussed the case were at pains to note the differences between his case and those carried out under Bush.

Officials said Warsame’s interrogation was conducted under the rules of the U.S. Army Field Manual, which strictly limits the techniques that can be used. After the high-value interrogation group had completed its questioning of Warsame and transferred him to FBI custody, he was read his Miranda rights, the officials said. Warsame waived his right to a lawyer and continued talking, the officials said.