CIA 'slammed Guantanamo Bay prisoner into wall and waterboarded him 183 times in a month after he talked about helping plan 9/11 attacks instead of future outrages they were convinced al-Qaeda was plotting'

The CIA slammed a Guantanamo Bay prisoner into a wall and waterboarded him 183 times in a month in a bid to get him to talk about future attacks they believed Al-Qaeda was plotting, a court heard.

Psychologist Dr James Mitchell said he threw 9/11 suspect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed into a wall every time he discussed the terror attack instead of disclosing information about possible future strikes, the New York Times reports.

The doctor's testimony on Monday came during a pretrial hearing of the five men accused of helping to orchestrate the September 11 attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people.

Mitchell explained how he 'walled' a naked Mohammed and waterboarded him almost 200 times during March 2003 at a secret, overseas C.I.A. prison because he believed a nuclear attack on the US was looming which Mohammed had intel on.

He told the hearing that he believed Mohammed was discussing 9/11 as a way of distracting from an impending attack. 

Psychologist James Mitchell was recruited by the CIA to design their post-9/11 interrogation program which included waterboarding, intense sleep deprivation, and 'stress positions'

He described how he threw 9/11 suspect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed into a wall every time he discussed the terror attack instead of disclosing information about possible future strikes

The psychologist believed that Mohammed was trying to deflect from disclosing information about future Al-Qaeda attacks

His testimony fits with a prosecution argument that the CIA was seeking 'actionable intelligence' rather than confessions to secure future prosecutions when it violently interrogated the suspects at secret prisons known as black sites, from 2002 until they were transferred to Guantánamo in 2006.

Mitchell was recruited by the CIA to design their post-9/11 interrogation program and was personally involved in the waterboarding of self-proclaimed September 11 mastermind Mohammed. 

He has been testifying at pretrial hearings since 2020, during which time he has also admitted to threatening to kill Mohammed and his son during interrogation.

Mohammed is among the five men facing terrorism charges for the 2001 attack. His accused co-conspirators are Walid bin Attash, Ammar Baluchi, Ramzi bin Shibh and Mustafa Hawsawi.

Four are being prosecuted together with the fifth deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial alongside them.

Captured three weeks earlier in Pakistan, Mohammed was transferred first to Afghanistan and then to Poland where the harsh interrogation began within one hour of his March 7 arrival.

The interrogation continued until March 26.

Mohammed was deprived of sleep, waterboarded 183 times, slapped, shoved into a wall, placed in stress positions and exposed to continuous bright light and loud noise, all while he was nude.

Mohammed is among the five men facing terrorism charges for the 2001 attack. Pictured: Former Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden

Mustafa Hawsawi (left) and Ramzi bin Shibh (right) are also defendants

Walid bin Attash (left) and Ammar Baluchi (right) are also defendants

Mitchell claims that waterboarding, the harshest technique, was ineffective on Mohammed.

'He was a remarkable resister on that,' he commented previously.

In 2007, the accused admitted his role in 9/11 to FBI agents who did not use violence or the threat of it while at Guantanamo Bay, according to prosecutors.

A defense lawyer for Mohammed claims that anything he said while in custody is tainted by the harsh interrogation techniques used.

 This argument has now become the key focus of an effort to dismiss key evidence against the five men charged in the plot

They are making the defense using a 2014 Senate investigation which found that that the interrogation program designed by Mitchell and his colleague Bruce Jessen was used on 39 detainees and produced no useful intelligence.

They were paid up to $1,800 a day and received $81 million for their work, according to the Senate report.

Mohammed's defense team also argued using a report from the CIA's Office of Medical Services which claimed that while well-intentioned, the interrogation program was amateurish and inconsistent. 

Mitchell's testimony aligns with  a prosecution argument that the CIA was seeking 'actionable intelligence' rather than confessions. Pictured: Firefighter Gerard McGibbon prays after the World Trade Center buildings collapsed September 11, 2001

People flee from downtown Manhattan after planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 in New York City

A defense lawyer for Mohammed claims that anything he said while in custody is tainted by the harsh interrogation techniques used. Pictured: Flags at the National September 11 Memorial

The report also criticized as 'inappropriate' that the interrogators using waterboarding techniques were responsible for judging its effectiveness.

The report also criticized as 'inappropriate' that the interrogators using waterboarding techniques were responsible for judging its effectiveness.

Defense lawyers for the five men called Mitchell and other CIA contractors, who observed and took part in interrogations at clandestine CIA facilities, as witnesses in an effort to disqualify statements they made after they were transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006.

Mitchell claims that the methods used prevented future attacks and has shown no signs of remorse for the brutal techniques, which are now widely regarded as torture.

It appears that the only reason he wished for the techniques to stop was because of a fear it would stop those being interrogated from co-operating.

The methods used included waterboarding, intense sleep deprivation, confinement in a small box, prolonged shackling in 'stress positions' and being doused with cold water.

'Let me tell you just so you know... If it were today, I would do it again,' he told the pre-trial on Tuesday, January 21, where he came face-to-face with the five men for the first time since as they listened to his testimony.

'We were trying to save American lives. My sole focus was stopping the next attack,' he added, stating that the CIA was urgently trying to gather information as they feared 'another catastrophic attack'.