Military judge Army Col. James Pohl has extended the ban on female guards touching five Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay in order to punish Obama administration officials for trying to interfere with the case.
While Pohl said the ban will eventually end, he’s keeping it on for six more months to send the Obama administration a clear message, namely that interference with the judicial process is unacceptable, The Associated Press reports.
The ban currently only applies to these five detainees involved in Sept. 11 war crimes proceedings, since they have to frequently be moved around the facility, as they are stored in a secret part of Gitmo known as Camp 7. These detainees abhor the idea of contact with unrelated females.
Pohl referenced very public criticism of the “contact ban” coming from Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford.
For Pohl, the inappropriate comments Carter and Dunford dared to make “crossed the line.”
“Senior military leaders should know better than to make these kinds of comments in a public forum during an ongoing trial,” Pohl said in his ruling, which has not yet been released publicly.
During a Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing in October 2015, Carter blasted the ban on women having contact with Gitmo prison guards as “counter to the way we treat servicemembers.”
Dunford referred to the ban as “outrageous.”
But the Muslims think the ban is appropriate. Their lawyers argue these detainees are traumatized by female guards handling them. In particular, Walter Ruiz, who is defending Mustafa al-Hawsawi, said lifting the ban will make administrative details more difficult, as detainees will likely refuse to be present in any meetings with females.
“This issue is not about women; this issue is about legitimate religious and cultural sensitivities,” Ruiz said.
The defendants in the Sept. 11 proceedings are staring down the barrel of 3,000 counts of murder. Complaints about female guards have delayed the case, but this ruling should settle the matter.
There are 80 detainees left in Guantanamo Bay.
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