In 9/11 Case, Military Judge to Review ICRC's GTMO-Related Communications with the USG

So we learn from James Connell III, an attorney for 9/11 accused Ammar al-Baluchi.  Here is the lawyer's complete statement, regarding pretrial motions that Lawfare covered some time back :

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA Today, the military commission ordered the United States government to produce all correspondence between the United States and the International Committee of the Red Cross relating to Guantanamo Bay detention facilities for the military commission's review.  The military commission ordered that the prosecution cannot view the correspondence before the United States provides it to the military commission. "The ICRC records may provide important information about the extremely harsh conditions of confinement at Guantanamo over the years," said James Connell, attorney for Ammar al Baluchi.  "The ICRC correspondence represents the only independent historical record of the prisoners' time at Guantanamo." The order charts a path forward in a three-way dispute over ICRC records regarding the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay which attorneys argued in June.  The defense argued that they should have access to the ICRC records as part of their efforts to prepare for trial in the 9/11 case.  The prosecution argued that it should control access to the ICRC records.  The ICRC intervened in the litigation to argue that it has an absolute privilege against disclosure of the records to either prosecution or defense.  The military commission concluded that the military judge, not the prosecution, would review the records to determine their importance to the defense.

The development is an interesting one, though the devil's in the details---and so far, we're missing some details.  We don't have the ruling from the military judge just yet, for starters, but will in due course. In the meantime, it appears the court has not granted (yet) a defense request for the ICRC materials themselves. Still, by ordering an in camera review, the court also seems to reject ICRC and government filings----which sought, respectively, to bar the discovery of ICRC correspondence generally, and to permit the government to determine the documents' discoverability as an initial matter under commission rules.