Latest News

The order by the judge, Col. James L. Pohl of the Army, followed the interruption on Monday of a feed from the military tribunal courtroom in Guantánamo Bay of a pretrial motion in the Sept. 11 case that the public and the media view on a 40-second delay to guard against any inadvertent disclosure of classified information. The interruption brought to light that officials outside the courtroom were monitoring the proceedings and could block the public feed.

"This is the last time," Colonel Pohl said, that any party other than a security officer inside the courtroom who works for the commission "will be permitted to unilaterally decide that the broadcast will be suspended."

He added that while some legal rules and precedents governing the military commissions were unclear, there was no doubt that only he, as the judge, had the authority to close the courtroom. While officials may disagree about whether classified information had been improperly disclosed, he made clear he would not tolerate any outside party having control over a censorship button in his case.

"The commission will not permit any entity except the court security officer to suspend the broadcast of the proceeding," Colonel Pohl said. "Accordingly I order the government to disconnect any ability of a third party to suspend broadcast of the proceeding, and I order any third party not to suspend proceedings."

The 40-second delay in the closed-circuit broadcast from the high-security courtroom at Guantánamo Bay was instituted to allow a censor to block transmission of the proceedings to the public and reporters if classified information was inadvertently disclosed. But until Monday, there was no public sign that anyone other than the courtroom officer near Colonel Pohl could turn off the transmission. The feed is shown at Fort Meade as well as at a press room at Guantánamo.

The interruption came as David Nevin, a lawyer for Mr. Mohammed was discussing arguments over a pending motion regarding the preservation of evidence "at a detention facility." Colonel Pohl expressed surprise and anger, saying Mr. Nevin had not said anything classified and that his security officer in the courtroom had not hit the censor button.

Colonel Pohl on Tuesday ordered the government to add to a public transcript the portion of the proceeding that had been blocked from transmission, and read a cryptic partial explanation from the government that an "original classification authority" — apparently a reference to the C.I.A., since that is the agency that ran the secret "black site" prisons where the Sept. 11 defendants were previously held — was also monitoring the live feed for any disclosures of classified information.

The revelation that there were offstage censors monitoring the live feed of the transmission prompted concern from the defense lawyers, who on Thursday asked Colonel Pohl to stop any further consideration of motions in the case until they all could learn more about who is monitoring what communications related to the case.

In particular, the lawyers said, they wanted to know whether their confidential conversations with their clients or other counsel inside the courtroom and in attorney-client meeting rooms were being surreptitiously monitored.

In addition, late on Wednesday, the Pentagon disclosed that the "convening authority," an official who oversees the military commissions system, had withdrawn charges against three other detainees who had been charged with conspiracy and providing material support to terrorism in connection with accusations related to explosives training in preparation for attacks.