Guantanamo military tribunal; difficult balancing act for US

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

A Guantanamo military tribunal Wednesday faced the difficult balancing act of providing the openness and

Terror suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

US officials at Guantanamo Bay are walking tightrope between providing transparency, safeguarding military secrets at tribunal.

 

By Chantal Valery - US NAVAL BASE AT GUANTANAMO BAY

 transparency Americans expect from their courts, while also safeguarding sensitive US military secrets.

Terror suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, 46, was arraigned at Wednesday's hearing on charges related to the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.

Nashiri wore prison clothes for his first public appearance since his 2002 capture. His hair was short and he was unshaven, but he was neither handcuffed nor in ankle chains at his lawyer's request, and smiled several times at the judge.

US officials at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base in southeastern Cuba, where the trial is being held, are walking a tightrope as they balance the public's right to an open society with a free flow of information, with the need to ensure that US security interests are paramount and nothing of a sensitive nature is revealed at trial.

Mark Martins, chief prosecutor in the US Office of Military Commissions, said defense officials have bent over backwards to make the high-security proceedings "more accessible to the public, the media and to families."

"National security requires a balance," said Martins.

US officials have hit upon a novel way to strike that balance for the hundreds of relatives, media and nongovernmental organizations attending the proceedings.

Rather than sitting in court, reporters and visitors at the hearing were seated in a separate room watching a taped version of the proceedings on a 40-second delay.

"There are absolute requirements in terms of basic information for transparency, but there are items that cannot be publicly disclosed," Martin said.

"There has to be a process by which we surgically remove those items. Our nation's secrecy is not an open book, there has to be an oversight, said Martin.

"It's a balancing process: Free press, fair trial, national security."

Nashiri faces the death penalty for allegedly planning and preparing the October 2000 attack on the US Navy destroyer in Yemen's port of Aden that killed 17 sailors and wounded 40 more.

His arraignment at Guantanamo is the first trial by a US military tribunal since President Barack Obama reversed course and allowed their resumption.

Military censors carefully monitoring the trial have their fingers hovering over a "kill switch," allowing them to abruptly stop the audio and video feed if necessary in order to protect classified information.

And in a first, Wednesday's arraignment also was transmitted to locations in the United States to allow relatives of Cole victims to watch the proceedings.

Journalists could also watch a feed set up at the US Army's Fort Meade in Maryland, a short drive from the US capital.

Nashiri's trial was the first public appearance in years for a terror suspect who has not been seen publicly since his 2002 capture in the Gulf and subsequent incarceration at secret CIA prisons.

He is believed to have met several times with Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and is accused of murder, acts of terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism and attacks against civilians.

 

 

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[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]