A military judge at Guantanamo Bay has ruled one of the five defendants charged over the 9/11 attacks is not fit to stand trial in a death-penalty case.
The defendant Ramzi bin al-Shibh has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, associated psychotic features and a delusional disorder.
His lawyer has long claimed his client was “tortured by the CIA”.
Al-Shibh was scheduled to face pretrial proceedings on Friday.
Colonel Matthew McCall in the US base on the eastern tip of Cuba accepted the findings of the doctors which said in August that al-Shibh was too psychologically damaged to defend himself.
The medical board of doctors concluded al-Shibh had become delusional and psychotic, The New York Times reported.
That made him incompetent to either face trial or plead guilty, according to a report filed with his trial judge on 25 August.
According to the report, the military psychiatrists said his condition left him “unable to understand the nature of the proceedings against him or cooperate intelligently”.
He was supposed be on trial on Friday with four other defendants, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
Before the trial, Colonel McCall has decided to remove al-Shibh from the case. The hearing of the other four defendants is expected to proceed as scheduled.
Hellbound and Down 