Basketball views of 9/11 inmate censored

GUANTANAMO BAY - Agence France-Presse

This courtroom sketch shows suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. AFP photo

Guantanamo censors delayed notes from prisoners to their families and even held up a message from one about NBA star, defense counsel said Oct. 16.

Much of what mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four alleged accomplices might have to say at a military tribunal must be classed top secret.

But the secrecy has become ridiculous. Defense lawyer Kevin Bogucki, who represents 9/11 defendant Ramzi Binalshibh, said another client, Muhammed Rahim, sent him a note stating: “LeBron James is very bad man. He should apologize to the city of Cleveland.” This was not a coded message, but Rahim’s opinion on James’ decision to quit the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team. Nevertheless, censors took two months to pass it on. The same censors took two months to declassify a note written by Binalshibh, a Yemeni who rented a flat in Germany with 9/11 attacker Mohammed Atta, to his family. “I couldn’t even say to my clients’ children: ‘Your father wants you to obey your mother’,” Bogucki said.