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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAmerica's Floating Prisons
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/americas-floating-prisons/373577/?n7ujpq
The USS San Antonio (James DeAngio/U.S. Navy
Right now, a suspected terrorist is sitting in the bowels of a U.S. Navy warship somewhere between the Mediterranean Sea and Washington, D.C. Ahmed Abu Khattala, the alleged leader of the September 2012 attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, is imprisoned aboard the USS New York, likely in a bare cell normally reserved for U.S. military personnel facing disciplinary action at sea. En route to the United States for more than a week, hes being questioned by military and civilian interrogators looking for critical bits of intelligence before hes read his Miranda rights, formally arrested, and transferred to the U.S. District Court in Washington, where hell face trial. Meanwhile, the sailors aboard are going about the daily business of operating an amphibious transport shipeven as the ships mission has been redefined by the new passenger in their midst.
This isnt the first time the Navy has played such a critical, curious, and largely under-reported role in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. In 2011, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a military commander for the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab, was captured aboard a fishing boat in the Gulf of Aden and detained by the Navy, on the high seas, for two months. In 2013, Abu Anas al-Libi, the alleged mastermind of the 1998 terrorist attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was held aboard the USS San Antonioan identical ship to the one being used this week. Both men were interrogated at sea before being flown to the United States to face criminal charges in federal courts. Warsame eventually pleaded guilty to nine counts, including providing material support to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and teaching other terrorists how to make explosives. Al-Libi pleaded not guilty to terrorism-related charges, and his case is ongoing.
In many ways, its not surprising that the U.S. government has been turning Navy assets into floating prisons for these dangerous men. Taking the slow route back to the United States offers interrogators the time and space to gather crucial intelligence from high-value sources like al-Qaeda-linked operatives. During the two months that Warsame was at sea, a select team of FBI, CIA, and Defense Department officials, part of the Obama administrations High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, questioned the Somali terrorist on all but a daily basis. He was cooperative throughout and some reports suggest that subsequent U.S. counterterrorism operations, including a drone attack in Somalia shortly after his capture, were a direct result of intelligence Warsame provided to authorities. While al-Libi was only detained at sea for about a weeka chronic medical condition prevented him from being held on a ship for an extended periodreports suggest that similar intelligence-collection efforts were underway in his case as well.
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America's Floating Prisons (Original Post)
xchrom
Jun 2014
OP
clydefrand
(4,325 posts)1. I wonder?
Do we still 'torture' during these special floating prison questioning?
xchrom
(108,903 posts)2. i don't think so - but how would we find out? nt
Michigander_Life
(549 posts)3. Interrogating these men (and others like them) is fine
Torturing them is not.
As long as we are not tortuting them, and the conditions are humane, I say interrogate indefinitely.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)5. Indefinite detention and interrogation is in itself not humane.
Without due process it is also wildly illegal any way you slice it.
Michigander_Life
(549 posts)6. It's not really indefinite as they're making their way back to the US
dembotoz
(16,784 posts)4. happy we grabbed him and all but this does make me cringe.....
can only take solace that if we were still under bush, the suspect would have been keel hauled by now.