The U.S. government has granted 14 key terrorism suspects the access to lawyers, the Washington Post reported Friday.
The fourteen detainees, transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from secret CIA prisons last year, have been formally offered the right to request lawyers, a move that could allow them to join other detainees in challenging their status as enemy combatants in a U.S. appellate court, according to the report.
The move, confirmed by Defense Department officials, will allow the suspects to have their first contact with anyone other than their captors and representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross since they were taken into custody.
The prisoners, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, have not had access to lawyers during their year at Guantanamo Bay or while they were held, for varying lengths of time, at the secret CIA sites abroad.
They were entitled to military "personal representatives" to assist them during the administrative process that determined whether they are enemy combatants.
The Pentagon didn't state the reason for the policy change.
The United States opened the detention facility at its naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, in January 2002, to hold terror suspects and Taliban members mainly captured during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.
About 340 detainees are still being held there, with most of them having been detained for over five years and only about 10 charged.
Source: Xinhua
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