The Bush administration has blocked a former military prosecutor from testifying that "severe" interrogation techniques ruined his case against a suspected al Qaeda terrorist, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning.

The paper said the official responsible for deep-sixing the testimony of Lt. Col. V. Stuart Crouch was Bush-appointed Pentagon counsel William J. Haynes II. Haynes may have a reason to be concerned about congressional attention to U.S. torture policies, the paper suggests: he helped oversee the Pentagon's policies, which would have been the subject of Crouch's testimony.

This is the second time Haynes has been involved in a behind-the-scenes scuffle over military testimony about torture that spilled into public view. Last September, he reportedly pressured several top military lawyers to sign a letter stating they did "not object" to controversial White House-backed legislation easing rules about so-called severe interrogation techniques, just days after several had expressed opposition to the bill.

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A Pentagon spokesman at the time denied the story, recounted days later in several major newspapers.

Yesterday, Haynes blocked testimony Crouch was slated to give today before the House Judiciary Committee with an e-mail to the prosecutor, in which Haynes stated he "has determined that...it is improper for you to testify about matters still pending in the military court system," the Journal reports.

It's not clear if the case in question is in fact pending, however, or simply dead. In March, the Wall Street Journal reported that since Crouch refused in 2004 to prosecute a Guantanamo prisoner, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the case has been "on ice." Today, the paper says the prosecution has been "shelved."

Crouch reportedly found evidence Slahi had been beaten, his life had been threatened and he was warned his mother would be raped in custody if he did not cooperate, the paper reported.  Because the case against Slahi was based on incriminating statements Slahi appeared to give as a result of that treatment, Crouch believed they were not permissible.

Slahi, who is alleged to have helped recruit several of the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers, remains in Guantanamo, not yet charged with a crime. He reports the beatings and other severe treatment have stopped.

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