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U.S. begins hearings for Gitmo prisoners
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 10, 2007
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The United States began a series of secret hearings Friday to determine whether 14 alleged terrorist leaders at its prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be declared "enemy combatants" who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted by military tribunals. No details were released and a military spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Chito Peppler, declined to identify detainees who appeared before the panel of three officers. Edited transcripts of the hearings at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba will be released later, Peppler said. The 14 detainees, including an alleged mastermind of the Sept.11, 2001, attacks, were moved in September from a secret CIA prison network to the prison at Guantanamo Bay, where the United States holds about 385 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban. The military allowed the media to cover previous hearings, but this time has adopted more stringent rules, barring anyone without a special security clearance. The 14 detainees include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in Pakistan in March 2003, and other alleged al-Qaida figures. Legal experts have criticized the U.S. decision to bar independent observers from the hearings.
[Last modified March 10, 2007, 02:38:33]
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