Torture plea fails

A Guantanamo Bay detainee brought to the United States for trial on charges of helping to bomb two US embassies in Africa while he was an aide to Osama bin Laden cannot use allegations of torture by the CIA to dismiss the indictment, a judge said yesterday.

US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan made the ruling in Manhattan after months of consideration of heavily censored documents submitted by lawyers for Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and the US Government.

Kaplan said Ghailani might be able to sue the Government for civil damages or seek criminal prosecution of those who abused him if he can prove his rights were violated by torture, but that he cannot eliminate an indictment charging him in the August 1998 bombings of the two embassies.