A Yemeni national accused of helping plan the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks was ejected three times from a courtroom at the United States military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba this week during pretrial hearings.
Ramzi Binalshibh, 41, caused a commotion during both the morning and afternoon sessions at Gitmo on Tuesday this week, so much so that Army Colonel Judge James Pohl elected twice to remove him from the proceedings. On Wednesday, Binalshibh again earned himself a ticket out of the court after angrily protesting his confinement before the judge.
Binalshibh was first expelled from court on Tuesday morning after he refused to provide Pohl with a yes-or-no response when he was asked if he understood his rights. Instead the detainee erupted before the judge in both English and Arabic about “secret CIA prisons” and “torture,” according to multiple accounts from reporters who covered the hearing at both the base and from before closed-circuit feed provided to the media at Fort Meade, Maryland.
“If you don’t stop talking, you will be escorted out of the court at this time,” Pohl warned the man, according to Reuters’ dispatch from Ft. Meade.
Miami Herald journalist Carol Rosenberg watched the proceedings unfold through a video feed broadcast on a 40-second delay to reporters at an adjacent facility, and said she heard Binalshibh unleash before Pohl in English: “It’s a secret CIA prison . . . Nobody knows it. Nobody enters it. Nobody sees it.”
Defying the judge’s orders, the detainee continued to complain loudly and was soon after ordered by the judge to be removed.
Binalshibh was back before the court that afternoon, but again began complaining, this time of torture, until Pohl again ordered his expulsion.