Ex-Gitmo detainee pushes case to end strip searches

A former CIA and Guantánamo Bay detainee Thursday told a federal judge in Manhattan that he doesn't want to come to court anymore if the judge won't order a stop to strip searches that the defendant says trigger flashbacks of alleged mistreatment during interrogations.

"If you rule against my motion, I would not want to come here," former Osama bin Laden aide Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani told U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. "I would want to waive my presence."

Ghailani, a Tanzanian, was ordered into court Thursday after months of refusing to show because the Bureau of Prisons requires a visual rectal examination during transfers from jail. Dressed in a blue, short-sleeved prison smock, Ghailani appeared composed but nervous during his exchanges with the judge.

Despite an offer from Ghailani to be shackled in court to avoid the exam, Kaplan said he wants to hear testimony from a psychiatrist on May 18 before ruling on the searches. He did tell Ghailani that - except for one mandatory appearance at trial - he appeared competent to waive future court appearances.

Ghailani is charged with being part of the plot to bomb two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. He was held in secret CIA prisons and at the Guantanamo military prison from his 2004 capture until last year. He is the only Guantanamo detainee who has been transferred to civilian courts for trial.

A court-appointed psychiatrist last year found that nude exams triggered post-traumatic stress syndrome in Ghailani. Ghailani and his lawyers decided not to have him take the stand Thursday to describe his treatment during interrogations, but a paralegal was allowed to describe Ghailani's reaction to the searches in jailhouse meetings.

"He did not wish to testify . . . because it's something that makes him extremely upset, and it's traumatizing to him," defense lawyer Peter Quijano said.

Prosecutors have opposed Ghailani's motion, arguing that the searches are part of uniform Bureau of Prisons procedure and Ghailani isn't entitled to special treatment.

Faced with Kaplan's order that Ghailani appear Thursday, paralegal Anna Sideris said that he told her on Tuesday that the nude exams "eat his soul, he's terrified of going through it."

"He just wants peace, even if it means spending the rest of his life in jail," she added later. "He'll do that. He just wants peace."