MIAMI — Lawyers for an alleged archterrorist held at Guantanamo argue in an unlawful-detention suit that their client is insane — and that U.S. agents concluded long ago that any intelligence he could provide is unsound.
A Washington, D.C., court unsealed the suit this week by Zayn Abidin Muhammed Husayn, known as “Abu Zubaydah,” whom the CIA has admitted to waterboarding in secret interrogation.
His attorneys used U.S. government leaks plucked from the news media and a recent book on the CIA’s war on al- Qaeda, which portrayed their client as mentally incompetent.
The descriptions are sharply at odds with a September 2006 White House speech by President Bush, who said the CIA extracted vital intelligence after using “an alternative set of procedures” on Abu Zubaydah.
