Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, is seen shortly after his capture during a raid in Pakistan. The hearings are scheduled from Monday through Friday.(Photo: AP)
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - A U.S. military judge is
considering broad security rules for the war crimes tribunal of five
Guantanamo prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attacks, including measures
to prevent the accused from publicly revealing what happened to them in
the CIA's secret network of overseas prisons.
Prosecutors have
asked the judge at a pretrial hearing starting Monday to approve what is
known as a protective order that is intended to prevent the release of
classified information during the eventual trial of Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, who has portrayed himself as the mastermind of the terror
attacks, and four co-defendants.
Lawyers for the defendants say
the rules, as proposed, will hobble their defense. The American Civil
Liberties Union, which has filed a challenge to the protective order,
says the restrictions will prevent the public from learning what
happened to Mohammed and his co-defendants during several years of CIA
confinement and interrogation.
The protective order requires the
court to use a 40-second delay during court proceedings so that
spectators, who watch behind sound-proof glass, can be prevented from
hearing - from officials, lawyers or the defendants themselves - the
still-classified details of the CIA's rendition and detention program.
"What
we are challenging is the censorship of the defendant's testimony based
on their personal knowledge of the government's torture and detention
of them," said Hina Shamsi, an ACLU attorney who will be arguing against
the protective order during the pretrial hearing at the U.S. base in
Cuba.
The order, which is also being challenged by a coalition of
media organizations that includes the Associated Press, is overly broad
because it would "classify the defendants own knowledge, thoughts and
experience," Shamsi said in an interview.
"It's a truly extraordinary and chilling proposal that the government is asking the court to accept," she said.
Protective
orders are standard method in civilian and military trials to set rules
for handling evidence for the prosecution and defense. Military
prosecutors argue in court papers that the Sept. 11 trial requires
additional security because the accused have personal knowledge of
classified information such as interrogation techniques and knowledge
about which other countries provided assistance in their capture.
"Each
of the accused is in the unique position of having had access to
classified intelligence sources and methods," the prosecution says in
court papers. "The government, like the defense, must protect that
classified information from disclosure."
Army Brig. Gen. Mark
Martins, the chief prosecutor for the military commissions, said Sunday
that the security precautions are necessary to prevent the release
information that could harm U.S. intelligence operations or personnel
around the world, and not to prevent embarrassing the government or to
cover-up wrongdoing.
"Our government's sources and methods are not an open book," Martins said.
The
U.S. government has acknowledged that before the defendants were taken
to Guantanamo in September 2006 they were subjected to "enhanced
interrogation techniques" such as the simulated drowning method known as
water-boarding. Defense attorneys say the treatment will be used to
form the basis of their defense but the proposed protective order limits
their ability to make that case in court and in public advocacy on
behalf of their clients.
"It's a way in which the government can
hide what it did to these men during the period of detention by the
CIA," said Army Capt. Jason Wright, a Pentagon-appointed attorney for
Mohammed. "I think we need to bring the truth to the light of day on
these issues."
The judge's approval of the protective order, which
may not happen this week, must occur before the Sept. 11 case can move
forward. Defense lawyers cannot begin to review classified evidence
against their clients until it is in place.
The protective order
is the most contentious of about two dozen preliminary motions scheduled
to be heard during a pretrial hearing expected to run through Friday.
Other matters include whether the defendants can be required to attend
court sessions, what clothing they are allowed to wear and defense
requests for additional resources for what is considered one of the most
significant terrorism prosecutions in U.S. history.
The families
of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks have been invited to military
installations in the U.S. states of New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland
and New York City to watch the pretrial hearings, which are closed to
the general public. An earlier round of hearings in May was also
transmitted to viewing locations for relatives of the victims, survivors
of the attacks, and emergency personnel who responded to the disaster.
Mohammed
and his four co-defendants are being prosecuted in a special military
tribunal for war-time offenses known as a military commission. They were
arraigned May 5 on charges that include terrorism, conspiracy and 2,976
counts of murder in violation of the law of war, one count for each
known victim of the Sept. 11 attacks at the time the charges were filed.
They could get the death penalty if convicted.
Mohammed, a
Pakistani citizen who grew up in Kuwait and attended college in North
Carolina, has told military officials that he planned the Sept. 11
attacks "from A to Z" and was involved in about 30 other terrorist
plots. He has said, among other things, that he personally beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter
Daniel Pearl. The other defendants are Ramzi Binalshibh; Walid bin
Attash; Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi; and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali.
Their
arraignment was an unruly, 13-hour proceeding in which the defendants
stalled proceedings by refusing to use the court translation system and
ignoring the judge. Subsequent hearings to handle pretrial motions were
postponed because of scheduling conflicts, the Muslim holy period of
Ramadan and Tropical Storm Isaac. Several more pretrial hearings must be
held to litigate hundreds of motions before the start of the trial,
which is likely at least a year away.
Associated Press