Gangster Government

A military judge has ruled that defense lawyers can inspect the mysterious Camp 7 at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, puncturing the secrecy surrounding a facility where some of the major al-Qaeda suspects are being held.

Defense lawyers said yesterday that Judge Ralph H. Kohlmann, a Marine colonel, ruled that attorneys for Ramzi Binalshibh -- an alleged liaison between the Sept. 11 hijackers and al-Qaeda's leadership in Afghanistan in the run-up to the 2001 attacks -- could visit Camp 7 and inspect the defendant's conditions of confinement as part of an inquiry into his mental health.

At a hearing last month, Binalshibh's attorneys told a military court that their client is being administered a psychotropic drug normally used to treat schizophrenia. The lawyers argue that the Yemeni detainee's condition raises serious questions about his ability to stand trial on war-crimes charges and his insistence on defending himself in a capital case.

Binalshibh has told the court that he is perfectly capable of defending himself and that he resented the assertion of his assigned military attorney that he might be mentally ill.

The visit, yet to be scheduled, would be the first by any defense lawyer to a lockup that is guarded by a special military unit code-named Task Force Platinum. The location of Camp 7 on the 45-square-mile Guantanamo Bay base remains classified; military officials acknowledged its existence only this year, and even approaches to the facility are said to be heavily guarded.

The camp houses 16 high-value detainees, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-described operational mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. Fourteen suspects were transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006 after being held, some for years, at secret CIA detention facilities around the world. Two more suspects were subsequently transferred to Camp 7.

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