WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- Three high-level terrorism suspects faced a U.S. military tribunal last week, the U.S. Defense Department announced.
Combatant Status Review Tribunal proceedings were held March 10 at detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for Khalid Sheik Mohamed, the alleged mastermind of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters on Monday, according to American Forces Press Service.
March 9 proceedings took place to review the cases of Abu Faraj al-Libi, an alleged senior member of Al-Qaida, and Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, who is said to have helped Mohamed plan the Sept. 11 attacks.
The three are part of a group of 14 high-level detainees that were transferred to Guantanamo from CIA custody in September 2006. The Combatant Status Review Tribunal is a process to determine whether a detainee is eligible for enemy combatant status. Last week's hearings were only the first stage of the process, and therefore, no determination has yet been made, Whitman said
During a CSRT, a detainee is given a personal representative and the right to view an unclassified summary of evidence against him. Whitman said that not all detainees chose to participate in the proceedings, but he did not elaborate.
The proceedings are not open to the media because of security concerns, but the DOD indicated that edited transcripts will be available once the process concludes.
The CSRT was established after a Supreme Court decision in June 2004 in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamden, a former driver for Osama bin Laden who challenged his detention at Guantanamo.
Human rights groups have criticized the tribunals for the secrecy surrounding the process and for the questionable ways that evidence against a detainee can be collected.
"(Tribunals) do a great disservice to the United States and the rest of he world because they purport to provide some sort of due process," said Katherine Newell Bierman, counter-terrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch.
