US holds secret first hearings at Gitmo

Edited transcripts of the hearings at the US Navy base in southeast Cuba will be released later, Peppler said.

The 14 detainees, including an alleged mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, were moved in September from a secret CIA prison network to the prison at Guantanamo Bay, where the US holds about 385 prisoners.

Some are expected not to attend the proceedings and their cases will be considered in absentia, Peppler said.

The military allowed the media to cover previous hearings but this time has adopted more stringent rules, barring anyone without a special security clearance. The 14 detainees include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a suspected mastermind of the Sept 11 attacks who was captured in Pakistan in March 2003, and other alleged al-Qaeda figures.

Legal experts have criticized the US decision to bar independent observers from the hearings and The Associated Press filed a letter of protest, arguing that it would be “an unconstitutional mistake to close the proceedings in their entirety.”