Guantanamo Naval Base

Under gray skies all but obscured by an opaque canopy and high concrete walls topped with razor wire, two bearded young men in tan tunics are having "rec time" inside separate chain-link pens. One jogs frenziedly back and forth in the 30-foot enclosure; the other is curled like a fetus at the base of a cement block. It's a dreary winter afternoon, but the scene could be any time of the day or night.

The Pentagon charged a Guantanamo detainee with capital murder and terrorism Monday for his alleged role in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania and his suspected ties to Al Qaeda. The Defense Department's chief military commissions prosecutor filed nine charges against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, and is seeking the death penalty if the Tanzanian is convicted of playing a central role in planning and preparing the truck bombing that killed 11 people and injured dozens.

A wave of change appears headed toward the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with all three major presidential candidates vowing to abolish the military prison. And somewhat surprisingly, closing the camp and moving the prisoners to the United States may be the easy part, said U.S. officials, former administration aides and legal experts. But nobody has yet found a way through the legal thicket in the way.

As more than 70 lawyers, paralegals, courtroom personnel and journalists waited to take off from Baltimore-Washington International Airport on a flight here this month, two crucial figures in the Office of Military Commissions crawled through rush-hour traffic looking for a U-Haul rental drop-off. Army Sgt.

They make an unlikely pair, the world's most notorious captured terrorist and the Navy captain assigned to defend him against war-crimes charges that could lead to his execution. But together, the two men are quietly embarking on a legal odyssey that could last years, and may ultimately help define the constitutional parameters of the United States' role in the global war on terrorism.

A judge hearing a war crimes case at Guantanamo Bay who publicly expressed frustration with military prosecutors' refusal to give evidence to the defense has been dismissed, tribunal officials confirmed Friday. Army Col. Peter Brownback III was presiding over the case of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr. Marine Col.

Critics of the war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo Bay have consistently assailed the coerced confessions that may be used as evidence against the defendants and have repeatedly charged that the prisoners' severe isolation causes mental illnesses that make them unable to aid in their own defense. Now, the critics add, evidence has emerged to show that the government advised interrogators to destroy their notes to evade legal consequences for their actions.

What does the Supreme Court decision recognizing Guantanamo detainees' habeas corpus rights mean for the detainees? About 270 men are at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in southern Cuba -- 19 already charged with war crimes and 250 or so being held without charges, many for more than six years. Habeas corpus is a constitutionally guaranteed right to challenge detention, but the Pentagon has denied it to the terrorism suspects at Guantanamo.

A federal appeals court said Monday that the U.S. military improperly labeled a Chinese Muslim held at Guantanamo Bay an "enemy combatant" and it ordered that he be released, transferred or granted a new hearing. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington marks the first time a federal court has weighed in on the issue of a Guantanamo detainee's classification and granted him the opportunity to try to secure his release through civilian courts.

A military judge Wednesday strongly advised two accused co-conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks not to represent themselves in their upcoming trial because their defense would suffer from several factors, including a lack of access to the classified evidence that the government plans to use against them. "It would be best for you to accept the assistance of counsel. If it sounds as if I am trying to talk you out of representing yourself, that would be accurate," Judge Ralph H.