Ayotte: Intelligence from Detainees Essential to Finding Bin Laden

Press Release

U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) today praised America's intelligence community and highlighted reports that terrorist detainees provided essential information that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden. Ayotte renewed her call to keep open the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to provide a place to interrogate current and future terrorist detainees.

"Intelligence obtained from detainees was critical to finding and killing Osama bin Laden, which highlights the importance of keeping open the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility. While bin Laden's death deals a major blow to al Qaeda, other terrorist leaders such as Ayman al Zawahiri remain at large," said Ayotte, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

She continued: "Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Gates testified that America doesn't have a clear plan for what we would do if we captured terrorists outside an area in which we're involved in a direct conflict. We need to keep Guantanamo open in order to detain and interrogate current and future detainees. Using Guantanamo in this manner will help our nation track down terrorists and help prevent future attacks."

Earlier this year, Ayotte helped introduce legislation that aims to improve procedures for the detention and review of the status of detainees, provide for more effective interrogation of detainees, provide for a review of the challenges to the detention of detainees, and prohibit the use of Department of Justice funds for the prosecution in civilian courts of individuals involved in the September 11th terrorist attacks. The legislative package would provide a solid, statutory foundation for detainee policy, which has been a vexing issue for almost 10 years.

Source