Red Cross Workers to Meet With 14 Who Were Held in Secret Prisons

Representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross are scheduled to begin meetings Monday with the 14 terrorism suspects who were held for years in secret CIA custody, the detainees' first contact with the outside world since they were captured after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The meetings will be part of a routine Red Cross visit to the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said Simon Schorno, a Red Cross spokesman in Washington. About 12 officials, including interpreters, will spend about two weeks at the camp, he said.

Red Cross officials have met regularly with the hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay since early 2002 but have never before gained access to detainees in U.S. custody in secret prisons around the world.

Schorno said the Red Cross has been hoping to speak to anyone who was held in a CIA-run prison.

"It has been a priority of ours to gain access to those people," he said. "It's something that we have expressed our discomfort and problem with several times."

Defense Department officials declined to confirm the visit.

"The International Committee of the Red Cross has regularly sent delegations to Guantanamo for weeks at a time," said Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler, a department spokesman. "They have had access to private interviews with detainees and have facilitated communications with their family members around the globe."

President Bush publicly addressed the secret CIA program this month just as the detainees were transferred to Guantanamo Bay, where they are covered by international humane-treatment standards. Bush defended the program and has been pushing for a U.S. law that would allow the CIA to continue using aggressive interrogation tactics, something members of Congress -- including some top Republicans -- have been trying to block.

The Red Cross will officially register the men, one of whom is alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and will then offer to speak to them privately, Schorno said. The meetings involve only a Red Cross delegate, an interpreter and in some cases a doctor.

It is possible that, in such discussions, the Red Cross will become the first organization outside of the Bush administration to learn about the practices in the CIA-run facilities, including the interrogation techniques used. But the international agency's guidelines require the information to be completely confidential, meaning that the representatives will be able to directly raise their concerns only with U.S. authorities.

"Certainly it's a difficult decision, but it's the main reason why we get access," Schorno said. "We will take the information and intervene if necessary."

The visits also mean that the 14 suspects will be able to contact their families, who until this month were unaware of the men's whereabouts, through Red Cross messages. The U.S. military censors the messages before delivery, and families are allowed to write back.

Schorno said 20,000 such messages have been transferred between Guantanamo Bay detainees and their families.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.