US says microphones found in Guantanamo legal meeting room
MIAMI — Microphones were found in a room where a Saudi prisoner met with his lawyers at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, U.S. officials said in recently filed court documents that shed light on an incident that has halted legal proceedings in a high-profile terrorism case.
The microphones were found in August 2017 during an inspection of the room by defence lawyers for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri that they conducted after military officials disclosed that attorney-client meetings in another part of the U.S. base in Cuba could have been overheard.
That set off a chain of events that eventually led senior members of al-Nashiri’s defence team to withdraw from the case, prompting the military judge last month to put an indefinite hold on legal proceedings against the Saudi, who is charged in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.
In their appeal of that decision, prosecutors disclosed the discovery of the microphones. The court filings, which have not yet been released, were first reported Wednesday by The Miami Herald and later obtained by The Associated Press.