Guantanamo suspect's lawyers seek CIA site access

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba since 2006 accused of involvement in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, is depicted in this courtroom sketch of his arraignment, in New York in this June 9, 2009 file photo. Lawyers for Ghailani, the first detainee transferred from Guantanamo Bay for trial in a U.S. civilian court, asked a judge on Tuesday for access to CIA ''black sites'' where they say he was harshly interrogated.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lawyers for the first detainee transferred from Guantanamo Bay for trial in a U.S. civilian court asked a judge on Tuesday for access to CIA "black sites" where they say he was harshly interrogated.

Lawyers for Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani said they needed access to the secret detention sites, whose locations abroad have not been publicly identified, to gather evidence and inspect whether any statements the Tanzanian made under interrogation were reliable, according to court papers filed in Manhattan federal court.

Ghailani is accused of involvement in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 224 people. He was transferred to New York three weeks ago after being held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba since 2006. President Barack Obama has announced the prison camp for foreign terrorism suspects would be closed by the end of January 2010.

His lawyers said in a memo to the court they believed that after he was arrested in Pakistan in 2004 he was secretly interrogated and made statements following physical and psychological ill-treatment at a CIA black site.

They said they were concerned that after the CIA said in April the sites were being shut down they would be unable to check the reliability of any statements Ghailani made.

The lawyers asked that the court order the CIA black sites where he was detained be preserved.

The "black sites" were used to detain suspects in the "war on terrorism" launched by former President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Jackie Frank)