Worldandnation: At Gitmo, tent city goes up fortribunals

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At Gitmo, tent city goes up fortribunals

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A network of canvas tents on a bluff overlooking the Caribbean Sea has been custom designed for the U.S. military's war-crime tribunals - with the flexibility to pick up and move if Guantanamo closes.

Nearly 100 tents and a windowless courthouse made of corrugated metal will form the $12-million Expeditionary Legal Complex, scheduled to open in the spring to hold trials for dozens of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Navy base in southeast Cuba.

With the future of the prison camp uncertain - even President Bush has said he wants to close it - the plan was scaled back dramatically from the $125-million permanent, three-courtroom structure that the Pentagon proposed last year.

The commander of the detention center, Navy Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, said the complex includes maximum-security detention areas and other features to accommodate trials for "high-value" detainees such as alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

At trials expected to involve classified evidence, the military judge will be able to cut off sound to spectators separated by a clear plastic window.

"It will have everything that is required to conduct multiple, simultaneous, highly classified commission hearings," Buzby said in a recent interview.

The only sacrifice in the new design, he said, may be comfort. Dubbed Camp Justice, the compound will be able to house as many as 500 lawyers, journalists and staff. Each air-conditioned tent will sleep as many as eight people on cots, with separate facilities for latrines, showers and laundry. "It will be camping out," Buzby said. "It's going to be a little rustic, that's all."

The hurricane-resistant tents could begin housing people for tribunal sessions as early as next month, but officials say the courthouse - the only permanent part of the compound - likely will not open for proceedings until April.