An alleged accomplice in the 9/11 attacks will get surgery this week to repair damage done to him from what his attorney says was “sodomy” while he was in CIA custody more than 10 years ago, the Miami Herald reported Tuesday.
Defense attorney and Navy Reserve officer Walter Ruiz made the announcement in a pre-trial hearing for his client, Mustafa al Hawsawi, and four other men who allegedly helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Ruiz said one of the prosecutors told him about the procedure this past weekend because defense attorneys have been pursuing legal action over prison conditions and medical treatment for Hawsawi’s rectal prolapse, which has caused him painful bleeding for more than a decade.The surgery is expected to take place Friday night, and Ruiz said Hawsawi was denied permission to have any of his legal representatives present near the surgery.
Detention center spokesperson Navy Capt. John Filostrat refused to comment in an email sent to the Miami Herald.
The Herald’s report came out one day after The New York Times published an expose featuring interviews with former CIA and Guantanamo prisoners dealing with the effects of alleged torture. Hawasawi was captured along with alleged 9/11 engineer Khalid Sheik Mohammed in March 2003 and was held by the CIA until 2006, when he was sent to Guantanamo Bay.
He allegedly provided supplies like money and clothing for the 9/11 hijackers. The 2014 Senate Torture Report described agents using “rectal rehydration” and “rectal refeeding” on people in their custody.
“Mr. Hawsawi was tortured in the black sites. He was sodomized,” Ruiz said late Monday, asking reporters to “shy away from terms like rectal penetration or rectal rehydration because the reality is it was sodomy,” he said.
He said Hawsawi suffered tremendously for years because “when he has a bowel movement, he has to reinsert parts of his anus back into his anal cavity,” Ruiz said, which “causes him to bleed, causes him excruciating pain.” The prisoner has fasted and weighed in at less than 100 pounds upon his entry to the Guantanamo Bay prison site.
It is not clear where the surgery will take place nor if a colo-rectal surgery specialist will conduct the operation. Ruiz claims Hawsawi suffers from other maladies from CIA captivity, including neck pain after allegedly being thrown against a wall, an approved interrogation strategy.
The prisoner’s attorneys are arguing the damage should be included once Hawsawi is put to a trial that could determine whether he and five other men could be executed for their alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks.
