Portions of the 36-page hearing transcript were redacted, and the transcript does not include any details of the torture Nashiri said took place over five years. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said that any allegations of torture would be investigated and that sections were blacked out of the transcript because of national security reasons.
Nashiri is one of 14 so-called high-value detainees who were moved to the base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in September from secret CIA prisons abroad. The military is conducting hearings for the 14 to determine whether they are "enemy combatants" who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted for war crimes.
Human rights groups have argued for years that the CIA's detention and interrogation techniques amount to torture. The International Committee of the Red Cross has interviewed the 14 detainees.
In a confidential report that has not been publicly distributed, the Red Cross said the 14 prisoners described highly abusive interrogation methods, especially when techniques such as sleep deprivation and forced standing were used in combination. None of the detainees' accounts has been verified.
US officials long have said the CIA program is for the most dangerous detainees, and the CIA says its officers do not torture.
According to US intelligence, Nashiri is the suspected mastermind of the Cole bombing, and was Al Qaeda's operations chief in the Arabian Peninsula until he was caught in 2002. Nashiri, 41, was allegedly tasked by Osama bin Laden to attack the Cole.
In the transcript, Nashiri says he met with bin Laden many times and received as much as a half million dollars from the terror leader. The money, he said, was for "personal expenses," including for marriage and business deals.
