Lawyers of accused 9/11 plotters seek access to prison

US NAVAL BASE AT GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA (AFP) – Lawyers for five alleged 9/11 plotters urged a military judge Tuesday to give them two days to visit the super-secure prison and cells where their clients are being held.

The defendants, meanwhile, boycotted proceedings on the second day of preparatory hearings at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for their trial on charges of murdering nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001.

“You want to sleep with your client?” Colonel James Pohl, the military judge presiding over the case, retorted. “What would be the purpose of spending two days in the facility?”

Lawyers said they wanted to experience firsthand the conditions in which their clients were being held. No lawyer or journalist has ever been inside the Camp 7 maximum security facility.

David Nevin, the lawyer defending self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said it would be “for us to be able to observe exactly what life in this camp is like, particularly for a person that was tortured.”

“It would be the best way to have a better understanding of their conditions of confinement,” said Major Walter Ruiz, the military lawyer defending Saudi national Mustapha al-Hussawi.