Noah Feldman, Columnist

Secrecy Thwarts Justice at Guantanamo

Can a terrorist who's been tortured get a fair trial? Not according to the latest evidence.

May 12, 2016 at 4:24 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Photographer: FBI/Getty Images

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Secrecy and justice don't mix. Just look at the latest contortions in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

Mohammed's lawyer has filed a motion alleging that, at the prosecutor’s request, the judge allowed the government to destroy evidence that Mohammed could have used in his own defense. The proceedings of the special military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay are so secret that no one is allowed to say what the evidence was or to read the motion.