N.Y. trial of Gitmo detainee holds lessons

NEW YORK, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- The New York trial of a former Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainee holds lessons for the planned trial of the self-avowed Sept. 11, 2001, mastermind, analysts say.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first former Guantanamo detainee moved to civilian courts, has so far argued successfully to have the secret CIA prisons in which he was allegedly tortured preserved as evidence and has unsuccessfully sought to keep the military lawyers he had in the prison camp, The New York Times reported Monday.

The legal decisions made in Ghailani's trial could have a bearing on the controversial move by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to try admitted Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other detainees in a civilian courtroom as well, the newspaper said.

Prosecutors allege Ghailani is an al-Qaida terrorist, captured in Pakistan in 2004 and held in secret prisons run by the CIA before being moved to Guantanamo. A Tanzanian accused of helping the bombing of American Embassies in Africa in 1998, Ghailani's attorneys claim in five years of detention, Ghailani was kept in harsh conditions, abused during interrogation and denied a lawyer, the Times reported.