In a surprising about-face, the Department of Defense has decided for the first time to broadcast the military trial of a Guantánamo detainee.

 

The decision comes after years of secrecy that has surrounded the holding of accused terrorists, including their imprisonment in classified foreign locations.

 

In a motion filed with the military court, the Pentagon proposed allowing closed-circuit television coverage of the trial, beginning today, of Saudi Arabia-born Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the accused mastermind of al-Qaeda’s 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole. Seventeen American sailors died in the attack, making Nashiri eligible for the death penalty.

 

The TV transmission of the trial will only be viewable at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia (for family members of the victims) and, 200 miles away, at Fort Meade in Maryland, where up to 100 reporters and members of the public would be allowed into a special room to watch the proceedings. Because only 20 journalists have requested press credentials, the remaining seats should be available to normal citizens.

 

Nashiri’s defense team has welcomed the broadcast of the trial, claiming the coverage will demonstrate “how haphazard the system is” for prosecuting alleged terrorists.

 

“I think the more the public sees this system the more they will understand that it really is the kind of secretive expedient justice that we’re afraid of,” attorney Rick Kammen told the Miami Herald.

 

The proceedings themselves have been badly discredited by the fact that, while George W. Bush was president, al-Nashiri was subjected to torture, including waterboarding, that tainted the normal admissibility of any confessions he may have given. In addition, the Obama administration has made it clear that even the military tribunal finds him innocent, al-Nahsiri will remain in custody indefinitely.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Prosecutors Propose Wider Public Viewing of Guantánamo Terror Trial (by Carol Rosenberg, Miami Herald)

Chief Prosecutor Outlines Military Commissions Process (by Karen Parrish, Armed Forces Press Service)