Hearing halted after 9/11 suspects recognize interpreter from CIA black site

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- A military commissions judge on Monday halted a pre-trial hearing after defendants suspected of plotting the Sept. 11 terror attacks said they recognized a CIA worker from a so-called black site.

Alleged plotter Ramzi bin al Shibh, 42, told Judge Col. James Pohl he knew the interpreter just moments into the hearing at Guantanamo Bay Navy Base in Cuba.

"The problem is I cannot trust him because he was working at the black site with the CIA, and we know him from there," al Shibh said.

Monday was the first hearing for the five men accused in the Sept. 11 attacks since the Senate Intelligence Committee released the so-called "torture report" about the CIA's controversial secret prisons, or black sites. According to the report, the agency had two black sites at Guantanamo in 2003 and 2004 and al Shibh was held at one.

Cheryl Bormann, a lawyer for a another defendant, Walid bin Attash, said her client also recognized "somebody in this courtroom who was participating in his illegal torture."

The hearing was recessed until Wednesday morning so chief prosecutor Brigadier Gen. Mark Martins could investigate the matter.

Defendants Khalid Shiekh Mohammad, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawasawi were also in the courtroom.