No sign US eavesdropped on Cole suspect
2013-02-04 22:05
Fort Meade - A judge at Guantanamo Bay refused on Monday
to suspend a pre-trial hearing for the prisoner accused of orchestrating the
attack on the USS Cole, ruling that defence lawyers had offered no evidence
supporting their suspicion that the CIA can eavesdrop on their private
conversations with their client.
Army Colonel James Pohl said that unless the defence can
offer evidence of eavesdropping, the hearing for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri would
continue.
"I can't stop a trial simply because something might
happen," Pohl told defence attorney Navy Lieutenant Commander Stephen
Reyes during a heated exchange at the start of the scheduled four-day hearing.
Pohl granted ali-Nashiri's lawyers a three-hour recess to
consider whether they can ethically continue representing him if they suspect
that their privileged conversations are being monitored.
The hearing was held at the US naval base in Cuba. AP
watched a video feed of the hearing at Fort Meade.
Al-Nashiri, a Saudi national, is charged with
orchestrating the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors and
wounded 37.
He has been imprisoned at the Guantanamo since 2006,
after being held by the CIA in a series of secret prisons. He is considered to
be one of the most senior leaders in al-Qaeda.
The eavesdropping issue sprang from an episode last week
in another Guantanamo case in which an undisclosed government agency
unilaterally silenced courtroom loudspeakers to prevent spectators from hearing
classified information.
Pohl, who was surprised by the action, ordered the agency
on Thursday to disconnect the equipment.
Reyes said the defence wants to know whether any third
party can secretly monitor privileged conversations at the courtroom defence
table, in a nearby holding cell or elsewhere on the base.
Prosecutor Anthony W Mattivi assured the judge that no
such capability exists. Reyes wasn't satisfied.
"Now that we know there's a man behind the curtain,
we can't say, 'Ignore the man behind the curtain’," Reyes said.
Reyes said he especially wants to know if the CIA can
eavesdrop on those conversations.
"If it is the CIA that is conducting the listening,
this is the same organisation that detained and tortured Mr al-Nashiri,"
Reyes said.
A CIA inspector general's report said al-Nashiri was
waterboarded and threatened with a gun and a power drill because interrogators
believed he was withholding information about possible attacks against the US.
Such practices were allowed under rules approved by the
George W Bush administration but many them have since been repudiated as
torture.
- AP
