The Pentagon official overseeing the tribunals for Guantanamo Bay detainees has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the September 11, 2001, attacks, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

"We tortured Qahtani," Susan Crawford said in an interview with the newspaper. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who also worked in the Reagan administration, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have said that the United States does not torture.

Crawford told The Post the techniques used in Qahtani's case were authorised but applied in an overly aggressive and too persistent manner.

Full article here