Reporting from Washington — Accused Sept. 11 organizer Khalid Shaikh Mohammed told U.S. military officials that he gave false information to the CIA even after undergoing punishing bouts of interrogation, according to documents made public Monday.
His claim will probably intensify the debate over the George W. Bush administration's use of harsh techniques to gain information from terrorism suspects.
Mohammed made the assertion during hearings held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the militant leader was transferred in 2006 after being held at secret CIA sites since his capture in 2003.
"I make up stories," Mohammed said, describing in broken English an interrogation probably administered by the CIA that concerned the location of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
"Where is he? I don't know. Then he torture me," Mohammed said. "Then I said, 'Yes, he is in this area.' "
The statement could amplify calls for the Obama administration to release more information about the treatment of detainees or to allow a broader inquiry into the Bush administration's interrogation policies, which included waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning.
Monday's disclosure, representing the first allegation by a detainee that he lied while subjected to harsh practices, also could raise new questions about whether the techniques worked.
A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, said the statements raised questions about the effectiveness of the CIA's interrogation program.
"It underscores the unreliability of statements obtained by torture," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project.
But the CIA took issue with the description of the techniques as methods of torture that were not useful.
"The CIA plainly has a very different take on its past interrogation practices -- what they were and what they weren't -- and on the need to protect properly classified national security information," said Paul Gimigliano, an agency spokesman.
The bulk of the documents released Monday had been previously disclosed. They consisted of transcripts of court hearings that were held at Guantanamo Bay for accused Al Qaeda members. But the Bush administration had classified parts of them, including the detainees' allegations that they were abused in CIA custody.
The transcripts remain heavily redacted, with long passages of blacked-out text. The ACLU expressed disappointment that President Obama, who has pledged greater openness, decided to withhold so much information.
The ACLU is continuing to pursue an array of Bush administration documents that it hopes will shed further light on who authorized the interrogation program, as well as on questions raised inside the government about the effectiveness of the techniques.
"The public has a right to know what took place in the CIA's secret prisons," Jaffer said.
The ACLU said it would press in court for unclassified versions of the transcripts of tribunals held at Guantanamo Bay for Al Qaeda suspects that were formerly held by the CIA.
Aside from Mohammed's allegation that he offered false information after being tortured, there is little in the way of new details in the documents.
julian.barnes@latimes.com
greg.miller@latimes.com
