The military judge in the U.S.S. Cole bombing case on Friday threw out confessions the Saudi defendant Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri had made to federal agents at Guantánamo Bay after years of secret imprisonment by the C.I.A., declaring the statements the product of torture, reports Carol Rosenberg.
"Exclusion of such evidence is not without societal costs," wrote judge Col. Lanny Aco. "However, permitting the admission of evidence obtained by or derived from torture by the same government that seeks to prosecute and execute the accused may have even greater societal costs."
