Seven of the eight members of the US military who comprised the jury that sentenced Pakistan-native Majid Khan to 26 years in prison last week presented a handwritten letter to the court condemning his treatment at the hands of his American jailors, the New York Times reports.  The letter called the abuse Khan suffered “a stain on the moral fiber of America.”

The seven senior officers of eight on the jury, comprised of six Army and Navy officers and a Marine, issued the two-page letter after hearing two hours of testimony from Khan about the torture and abuse inflicted on the prisoner by interrogators, including members of the Central Intelligence Agency.  According to him, most of the abuse happened as he was shuffled among so-called “black sites” and prisons in Pakistan, Afghanistan and an unknown third country before being imprisoned at Guantanamo on the island of Cuba.

“Mr. Khan was subjected to physical and psychological abuse well beyond approved enhanced interrogation techniques, instead being closer to torture performed by the most abusive regimes in modern history,” according to the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times.

“This abuse was of no practical value in terms of intelligence, or any other tangible benefit to U.S. interests,” the letter said. “Instead, it is a stain on the moral fiber of America; the treatment of Mr. Khan in the hands of U.S. personnel should be a source of shame for the U.S. government.”

The now 41-year-old Khan, who spent some of his teen years living in Maryland, was captured in Pakistan in 2003 for acting as a courier for members of al Qaeda, possibly including the mastermind of the September 11th attacks,  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.  Khan was a prisoner for three years before his family was notified he was in US custody, and he was not allowed to see a lawyer until four and a half years after his detention.