By Tom Ramstack
FORT MEADE, Md., Oct 22 (Reuters) - U.S. military guards at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility improperly seized private legal documents from five prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 attacks, defense lawyers said in a pretrial hearing on Tuesday.
The attorneys accused Guantanamo guards of taking legal papers stamped "privileged" from the detainees' cells despite a court order forbidding the seizure of confidential attorney-client documents.
"From time to time at least, it's just been ignored," said attorney David Nevin, who represents Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the hijacked plane attacks in 2001.
The five defendants are charged with terrorism, hijacking and nearly 3,000 counts of murder and could be executed if they are convicted in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal.
During the hearing on Tuesday at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, the men sat quietly at courtroom tables, dressed in white garb, speaking occasionally with interpreters and their attorneys.
Reuters monitored a closed-circuit broadcast of the hearing from the Fort Meade Army base in Maryland.
Nevin and other defense attorneys said improper seizure of the defendants' legal documents could interfere with their rights to a fair trial.
"If this continues, it makes a sham of this entire proceeding," said attorney Cheryl Bormann.
Bormann represents Walid bin Attash, a Yemeni who is accused of training some of the September 11 hijackers at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.
"I'm a little annoyed," she said in describing the guards' seizure of the detainees' legal papers, translating them and reading them. "They keep penetrating the privilege and it's going to bring this attorney-client relationship to a halt.
"If it's written and stamped, they should not be seizing it. Period," said Bormann, who wore a black hijab in a Muslim style of women's dress.
The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, set limits on what guards could seize from the Guantanamo Bay cells at an earlier hearing. Material signed by a defense attorney typically was stamped "privileged" by the military Joint Task Force overseeing the detention facility and was to be exempt from seizure.
"I am concerned that if I issued an order and it is not being followed," additional measures might be needed to force guards to comply, said Pohl. "I want to get this resolved."
The chief prosecutor, Brigadier General Mark Martins, suggested some of the guards might be confused about the restrictions as they regularly search for contraband.
"Put yourself in the position of that guard who's dealing with a lot of things," Martins said.
During much of the hearing's morning session, attorneys discussed which doctors and other experts should be allowed to testify at the trial. No date for the trial has been set. (editing by Gunna Dickson)
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