9/11 Defendant Alleges 'Torture': No Lunch

A 9/11 defendant abruptly asked to leave a pre-trial hearing yesterday, alleging that there had been "problems between me and the guards on a daily basis" revolving around food. Ramzi bin al-Shibh was the only 9/11 defendant who had decided to attend the hearings; the other four had opted to stay in their Guantanamo Bay cells. "I cannot remain here," bin al-Shibh told the judge, according to the Christian Science Monitor. "There are problems with the food."

Bin al-Shibh didn't specify what those problems were, but he did say that in some cases (such as during lunch-hour meetings with his lawyers) he hadn't been provided any lunch at all. "This is one sort of psychological torture." He said it had bothered "the brothers as well," meaning his co-defendants. A military spokesman tells the AP that bin al-Shibh got a "freshly prepared meal" every day that met his religious requirements. But "the defendant complained that his lunch did not include condiments such as olives and honey." (More Ramzi Binalshibh stories.)