Lawyer to challenge Gitmo conditions

A lawyer for a Guantanamo Bay prisoner charged in the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States said Sunday that he planned to challenge conditions inside the prison's top-secret Camp 7 after he was able to see the site and meet there, for the first time, with his client Ammar al-Baluchi – whose pretrial hearing, along with four others' charged in the attacks – starts Monday.

A judge granted the lawyer, James Connell, and two experts 12 hours to view the camp and meet with al-Baluchi, also known as Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali.

Camp 7 is so shrouded in secrecy that its location on the U.S. base in Cuba is classified. No other defense lawyer had ever been allowed to meet with a client held at the high-value-detainee camp.

The camp opened in 2006 to hold people who had been held in CIA prisons overseas and subjected to harsh interrogations that critics say amounted to torture. Prisoners there do not live in communal pods like most of the others held at Guantanamo, and they cannot make phone calls to their families.

On Thursday, Connell was taken in a van with blacked-out windows to Camp 7, where he was able to meet with al-Baluchi in his cell. Connell said that he couldn’t reveal what he saw in the prison but that he doesn’t believe conditions meet the standards of the Geneva Conventions.

Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan reported from Guantanamo Bay that Connell is expected to file motions regarding conditions at Camp 7 with the judge presiding over the tribunal.

Jordan reported that al-Baluchi had met with his legal team only inside a courtroom before and that he had refused to meet his lawyers at the designated attorney-client facility at Guantanamo Bay because of fears that someone would be listening to their conversations – a violation of attorney-client privilege.

In February, defense attorneys discovered listening devices disguised as smoke detectors in attorney-client meeting rooms at the prison.

Conditions for Guantanamo detainees have gained media attention in recent months because of a hunger strike that at one point included over half the prisoners.

The strike began as a protest against administrative detentions – the practice of holding detainees indefinitely without charge or trial. Eventually, reasons cited for the strike came to include other human-rights issues, like force-feeding.

In July, rapper Mos Def released a video protesting the practice of force-feeding in which he is seen struggling and weeping while being force-fed. U.S. medics who performed the procedure on striking detainees said most of them were calm and accepting.

In accounts relayed through their lawyers, the prisoners have described rough treatment and excruciating pain. Journalists are not allowed to speak to any of the 166 detainees held at the U.S. naval base in eastern Cuba.

Though nearly half of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay were cleared for release in 2009, most have not been repatriated because of legislation enacted by Congress that blocked the transfer of detainees to the United States and made it harder to send them abroad.

The Obama administration remains determined to close the detention facility "in a responsible manner that protects our national security," a White House press release said on July 26. As part of the U.S. government's renewed efforts to close Guantanamo, it will move forward with military trials for some detainees.

The United States began using the prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 to hold enemy combatants at the start of the war in Afghanistan. At its peak, the facility held almost 700 detainees, with Afghans and Saudis making up the majority of detainees.

Al Jazeera and wire services