米ＣＩＡ心理学者、グアンタナモでの拷問を正当化

【ワシントンＡＦＰ＝時事】2001年9月11日に発生した米同時多発攻撃後の「テロとの戦い」で、キューバ・グアンタナモにある米軍基地収容所に拘束された容疑者らに米中央情報局（CIA）が実施した拷問プログラムについて、考案に携わった心理学者が正当化する発言をした。（写真は資料写真）
　２９７６人が死亡した米同時多発攻撃の後、国際テロ組織アルカイダの構成員と疑われた容疑者らは、グアンタナモ米軍基地に秘密裏に設置された収容所で、水責めや負荷のかかる姿勢の強制、睡眠はく奪といった厳しい尋問を受けた。
　「強化尋問」と呼ばれるこの尋問手法の考案者の一人である心理学者のジェームズ・ミッチェル氏は２１日、グアンタナモ米軍基地で開かれた被告らの予備審問で質問に答え、強化尋問を受けた被告のうち５人の前で全く悪びれず、「今日でもまた同じことをするだろう」と述べた。
　ミッチェル氏ともう一人の心理学者が考案に関わった強化尋問は、現在では違法な拷問として禁止されている。だがミッチェル氏は、国防を支援するために「道徳的義務感」から考案に関わったと語った。
　米紙ニューヨーク・タイムズによると、ミッチェル氏は「米国民の命を守ることは、われわれに向かって自発的に武器を取ったテロリストたちが感じる苦痛より重要だった」「（やらなければ）自分の道徳的責任の放棄だと思えた」と述べた。実際に行われた尋問の一部には、同氏も加わったという。
　グアンタナモに収容されていた被告の一部は、これから始まる公判で、米政府による強化尋問プログラムから得られた証拠を使用することに異議を申し立てている。そのため、ミッチェル氏が証人として呼ばれた。
　ＣＩＡの強化尋問によって得られた証拠は既に裁判での使用が禁じられているが、被告らは、米連邦捜査局（ＦＢＩ）が強化尋問で入手した証拠についても排除を求めている。
　グアンタナモに収容されていた被告らの裁判は、複雑な規定、運営の不手際、検察側と被告側双方からの法的駆け引きなどによって数年にわたって引き延ばされ、全員がいまだ予備審問の段階にある。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/01/24-08:34）

A psychologist who helped design the CIA's war on terror torture program after the September 11, 2001 attacks defended the program this week before its victims at the US military prison in Guantanamo, Cuba.
James Mitchell was unapologetic Tuesday when he appeared at a hearing to answer questions about the waterboarding, stress position and sleep deprivation techniques applied to 9/11 plot suspects detained in secret prisons following the attacks.
I'd get up today and do it again, he said before five of those men, whose slow-moving cases at the Guantanamo military tribunals have them facing possible death sentences.
Mitchell was one of the architects of the so-called enhanced interrogation operations deployed against suspected Al-Qaeda extremists after the 2001 attacks, which left 2,976 dead.
While the techniques he and another psychologist helped devise have now been banned as illegal torture, Mitchell said it had been his moral duty, to help protect the country.
To protect American lives outweighed the feelings of discomfort of terrorists who voluntarily took up arms against us, he told the court, according to The New York Times.
To me it just seemed like it would be dereliction of my moral responsibilities.
Mitchell personally took part in some of the interrogations, including waterboarding Abu Zubaydah, one of the earliest CIA captives associated with Al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden.
Abu Zubaydah, who remains imprisoned in Guantanamo, was not among those in the courtroom facing Mitchell on Tuesday.
Those present included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times by CIA interrogation teams which included Mitchell; Mohammed's nephew Ammar al-Baluchi; Walid bin Attash; and two others, none of who had seen Mitchell since they were send to Guantanamo in the early-mid 2000s.
Mitchell had been called to testify as some of the prisoners in Guantanamo were challenging the use of evidence in their coming trials that was derived from the government's interrogation programs.
Evidence garnered from the CIA's interrogations already cannot be used in court; the defendants also want to exclude that from parallel FBI interrogations.
All the defendants are still in the preliminary phases of their trials, which have been stalled for years by complex rules, poor administration and legal maneuvers from both sides.
Mitchell is a big part of the reason why the victims' families still don't have any justice, said Amnesty International's Julia Hall.
Mitchell has said he is giving this testimony for the victims and families, she said.
However, it is in large measure because of the torture techniques that he himself created and used on the detainees that there has been delay after delay. Evidence extracted under torture can't be used in these proceedings.