Pentagon Building New Secret Courtroom at Guantánamo Bay

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is gathering a 2nd courtroom for warfare crimes trials astatine Guantánamo Bay that volition exclude the nationalist from the chamber, the latest determination toward secrecy successful the astir 20-year-old detention operation.

The caller courtroom volition licence 2 subject judges to clasp proceedings simultaneously starting successful 2023.

On those occasions, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the 4 different men who are accused of plotting the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, would person hearings successful the existing chamber, which has a assemblage for the public.

Smaller cases would beryllium held successful the caller $4 cardinal chamber. Members of the nationalist seeking to ticker those proceedings astatine Guantánamo would beryllium shown a delayed video broadcast successful a abstracted building.

It is the latest retreat from transparency successful the already secretive nationalist information cases astatine the base, wherever the subject and quality agencies person been restricting what the nationalist tin see. That includes forbidding photography of sites that were erstwhile routinely shown to visitors to declaring some populated and emptied wartime situation facilities disconnected limits to reporters.

In Guantánamo’s existent warfare tribunal chamber, which opened successful 2008, members of the nationalist watching the proceedings unrecorded perceive the audio connected a 40-second delay, clip capable for the justice oregon a information serviceman to mute the dependable if they fishy thing classified has been said.

That allowed spectators successful the assemblage successful January 2013 to spot the puzzled look of an Army justice after the C.I.A. remotely chopped off video feeds of the proceedings. Another time, lone observers successful the country saw guards bring an uncooperative suspect into tribunal strapped to a restraint chair, with a worker pursuing down carrying his prosthetic leg.

In 2018, guards acceptable up a infirmary furniture wrong the courtroom for a disabled suspect that could not beryllium seen connected video feeds.

But the caller courtroom, successful what is described a cost-saving measure, has nary specified gallery. Only radical with a concealed clearance, specified arsenic members of the quality assemblage and specially cleared guards and lawyers, volition beryllium allowed wrong the caller chamber.

As a workaround, the tribunal unit is designing a “virtual assemblage with aggregate camera angles simultaneously displayed,” said Ron Flesvig, a spokesperson for the Office of Military Commissions. The nationalist would beryllium escorted determination to ticker the proceedings, streamed connected a 40-second delay.

During recesses successful the existent courtroom, lawyers and different tribunal participants often prosecute with reporters and relatives of victims of panic attacks, regular interaction that would beryllium mislaid with the “virtual gallery.” So would the quality for a sketch creator to observe the proceedings live.

The operation program illustrates continuing improvisation astatine Camp Justice, the tribunal compound astatine Guantánamo, wherever the subject has been utilizing modular structures and tents since 2007 to debar gathering much imperishable structures, which necessitate legislature approval.

The 2nd tribunal was designed earlier President Biden took bureau with an administration-wide extremity of ending detention operations astatine the basal astatine Guantánamo Bay. It is being built successful the United States for assembly astatine Guantánamo and is expected to beryllium up and moving successful the mediate of 2023, Mr. Flesvig said.

Meantime, workers tin beryllium seen astatine the tribunal compound preparing a abstraction adjacent to the existing courtroom for the caller one. But Defense Department officials person yet to determine wherever to enactment the virtual gallery, oregon cipher its cost, helium said.

The caller tribunal has country for conscionable 3 defendants, excessively tiny for the Sept. 11 case, unless the justice severs immoderate the 5 defendants from the associated superior punishment trial.

The program does, however, let for a script of 2 death-penalty cases being tried astatine the aforesaid time. In the Sept. 11 case, reporters and victims would ticker live. But household members and shipmates of the 17 sailors killed successful the Qaeda termination onslaught of the destroyer Cole disconnected Yemen successful 2000, who routinely be sessions, would beryllium kept distant from the tribunal with different observers, watching video feeds.

It appears to beryllium tailor made for the conspiracy execution proceedings of 3 men who were precocious charged successful 2 violent bombings successful Indonesia successful 2002 and 2003 that killed much than 200 people. Lawyer James R. Hodes, who represents the pb defendant, Encep Nurjaman, who is known arsenic Hambali, said that adjacent astatine the existent court, entree has been acold from open.

Public viewing astatine Mr. Hambali’s arraignment successful August was strictly controlled by the military, which decides which reporters, instrumentality students oregon quality rights advocates tin committee a Pentagon charter level to question to the base. The subject besides controls entree to 2 distant video sites wrong the Pentagon oregon astatine Fort Meade successful Maryland.

“I’ve observed trials successful Mongolia that were much transparent than this,” Mr. Hodes said.

To beryllium sure, immoderate secrets person been declassified, peculiarly successful the death-penalty cases, which person been mired successful pretrial hearings for astir a decade.

A aesculapian adept precocious testified successful unfastened tribunal astir the post-traumatic accent of a captive who was waterboarded by the C.I.A. successful 2002. Previously, the doctor’s descriptions of the trauma would person been consigned to a classified league that excluded some the nationalist and the prisoner.

Separately, the quality services permitted unfastened tribunal treatment of thing that defence lawyers had known for years: Under a concealed agreement, the C.I.A. requisitioned nine F.B.I. agents and temporarily made them bureau operatives to interrogate prisoners successful a web of achromatic sites wherever the C.I.A. utilized torture successful its interrogations. The statement is inactive classified, but the quality agencies past period permitted its beingness to beryllium known.

But the caller courtroom reflects a inclination toward what appears astatine times to beryllium a peculiar pick-and-choose transparency.

For example, for 17 years the subject routinely took visiting journalists to the detention facilities wherever astir captives are kept, but required them to delete photographs that showed cameras, gates and different information procedures. Then, the subject undertook a consolidation that moved Mr. Mohammed and different detainees who were held by the C.I.A. from a concealed tract to the maximum-security information of those erstwhile showcase facilities — and declared the full detention portion disconnected limits to journalists.

Their empty, formerly C.I.A.-controlled situation is disconnected limits to reporters too. Defense lawyers who are seeking a preservation bid connected the site, picture it arsenic a rapidly deteriorating installation that was intelligibly unfit for the prisoners and their guards. One subject lawyer who visited determination precocious described carcasses of dormant tarantulas successful the bare cellblocks.

In 2019, a Marine judge, prosecutors and defence lawyers discussing a caller triple-wide, wheelchair accessible holding compartment astatine the tribunal utilized the look “jumbo cell” — derived from a Miami Herald article — 30 times successful a azygous tribunal hearing.

Security officers subsequently sent connection that the nickname for the cell, fundamentally a statement of a information measure, could nary longer beryllium spoken successful unfastened court. The prohibition continues, though the subject showed reporters the caller jumbo compartment earlier a proceeding connected the 20th day of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“This is an advertisement hoc classification system,” said James P. Anderson, the information specializer assigned to the defence squad of Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, who has spent nights successful the compartment astatine the tribunal complex. “Things that utilized to beryllium unclassified go classified conscionable due to the fact that the idiosyncratic reviewing it is uncomfortable with its use. It defies each tenable logic.”

On the evening of Oct. 28, an anonymous authorities authoritative sent connection to the justice that a paragraph should beryllium censored from a connection a captive was astir to work to a subject assemblage about his torture by the C.I.A.

The justice considered the petition and refused, noting that the connection was not classified.

In it, the captive Majid Khan quoted Jose Rodriguez, the erstwhile C.I.A. counterterrorism director, arsenic saying successful a paper nonfiction that “mistakes were made” successful the cognition of a peculiarly grisly C.I.A. situation known arsenic the Salt Pit. Mr. Khan was tortured determination successful 2003.

In November, U.S. Marines escorted reporters and others to the fabled Northeast Gate, a passageway to Cuban-controlled territory.

For this visit, the sightseers were told they could instrumentality selfies astatine the often photographed gross but were forbidden to station oregon people them.

To scope the gate, motorists thrust past the remains of Camp X-ray, Guantánamo’s archetypal wartime detention site, present a weed and rodent infested labyrinth of cells made of concatenation nexus fencing. Military officials for a clip forbade reporters from filming there, invoking unspecified information reasons. A elder authoritative intervened. Now, reporters who find themselves astatine the basal connected Jan. 11 tin instrumentality pictures determination — 20 years to the time of the accomplishment of Camp X-ray’s archetypal prisoners.