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Guantanamo hearing spirals into notebook safety debate
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/13/guantanamo-hearing-spirals-into-notebook-safety-debate/
Guantanamo hearing spirals into notebook safety debate
By Jane Sutton
Thursday, June 13, 2013 19:31 EDT
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – The Guantanamo prison warden testified on Thursday that he banned defense lawyers from bringing spiral notebooks into client meetings because the metal spirals could be removed and made into garrotes.
He appeared ready to demonstrate when the judge in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal blocked him from field-stripping a red notebook on the witness stand.
The debate over the danger of spiral notebooks came as defense lawyers for an alleged al Qaeda bomb plotter argued that prison rules are arbitrary and capricious and interfere with efforts to prepare a defense in a case that could end with the execution of defendant Abd al Rahim al Nashiri.
Nashiri, a 48-year-old Saudi, is accused of directing suicide bombers to ram a boat full of explosives into the side of the USS Cole off Yemen in 2000, causing a blast that killed 17 U.S. sailors and injured dozens more.
unhappycamper comment: Too bad they can't argue about the reason this person has been held for up to twelve years without being charged of a crime. Delay and obfuscation are the words of the day.