New Fall TV Season Won't Include Airing Guantanamo Bay Tribunal

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Citing military commission rules that prohibit radio or tv broadcasting of proceedings, military judge Col. James Pohl said he lacks authority to grant permission to news organizations to air a war crime tribunal at Guantanamo Bay naval base, the Associated Press reported this week.

In his ruling, Col. Pohl said attendance at the proceedings by the press and members of the public satisfy the constitutional requirements of a public trial. According to the AP, attorneys for Saudi defendant Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of plotting the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in which 17 American sailors were killed, sought live feeds of his trial to highlight what they allege are the legal drawbacks of military commissions.

Pohl's ruling applies only to the Cole prosecution.