Judge allows laptops for Gitmo detainees

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- A U.S. military judge says five alleged al-Qaida terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, can use their laptop computers 12 hours per day.

The judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, ruled last week that the detainees -- including alleged Sept. 11, 2001, mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- cannot use the computers to surf the Internet, however, The Miami Herald reported Monday.

Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators at the U.S. military detention camp are charged with the mass murder of 2,973 people in the World Trade Center attacks, and are facing a complex conspiracy case for which military prosecutors say execution is the most severe punishment possible, the newspaper said.

In a three-page ruling published on a U.S. Defense Department Web site, Kohlmann ruled the detainees should be allowed 12 hours per day of battery power for the laptops in order to review evidence against them and prepare for their upcoming trials, the Herald said.

Prosecutors said they had supplied the alleged terrorists with Toughbooks, laptops loaded with the government's evidence against them, which they can study in their cells.