October 18, 2007	Thursday	Shawwal 5, 1428

WASHINGTON, Oct 17: The Pentagon said on Tuesday it was allowing one of the 15 so-called “high value” detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to see a lawyer for the first time.

Majid Khan, a Pakistani who lived in Baltimore, Maryland, before his capture in Pakistan in 2003, was taken to Guantanamo last September after being held in secret CIA detention centres.

“The Department of Defence today will grant access for a civilian defence attorney to meet Majid Khan, a Pakistani national and one of 15 high value detainees held at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

Mr Khan is accused of being an Al Qaeda operative who was selected by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, for a possible attack in the United States.

Gitanjali Gutierrez, Mr Khan’s lawyer, wrote about her client in an opinion piece published on Monday in the Washington Post, charging that he was being held to protect the CIA programme under which he was originally detained.

“He is a prisoner being punished in order to protect his jailers. The logic is terrifying. And it is being done in the name of the American people,” she wrote.

“When I see him, it will be the first time he has been afforded the basic right of meeting a lawyer,” she wrote. “I am writing this column now because once I meet my client, military regulations will restrict my ability to speak publicly about the case,” she said.—AFP