New Legal Battle in Guantanamo

By more than 2-1, those Americans surveyed say Guantanamo shouldn't be closed. By more than 3-1, they oppose moving some of the accused terrorists housed there to prisons in their own states.

(Brennan Linsley, Pool/AP Photo)

A session of the Guantanamo war crimes court that began Sunday will likely show the difficulties President Barack Obama faces in changing the system and closing the prison by January.

The case in question, of a Canadian charged with killing an American soldier, is stalled by infighting among lawyers.

Other defendants have even more complex legal issues, and officials say the U.S. may have to choose between delaying Guantanamo's closure or quickly finding somewhere else to hold the trials.

"I don't think they'll get a single trial done by January," said Michael Berrigan, the deputy chief defense counsel for the Guantanamo tribunals. "I don't think there's any way."

The Guantanamo war court sessions are held in the $12 million Expeditionary Legal Complex, a windowless courthouse of corrugated metal and a network of dozens of tents overlooking the Caribbean that the military says can be picked up and moved if necessary.

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But the Obama administration has not found a replacement for Guantanamo. So when the judge in the trial of Omar Khadr decided a pretrial hearing was necessary, the military had no choice but to hastily arrange a charter flight to bring attorneys, court personnel and a dozen journalists to the U.S. base in Cuba.

The brief war court session, a closed hearing on Sunday and an open one on Monday, is the first since Obama asked military judges to suspend all proceedings while his administration reviews strategies for prosecuting terrorists.

The main issue before the tribunal is just who has the right to dismiss an attorney. It's a straightforward question in traditional civilian or military courts but there are not yet many legal precedents at the Guantanamo Military Commissions and still disagreement over the rules.

The chief defense counsel, Air Force Col. Peter Masciola, has been trying since April to fire the lead attorney for Toronto-born Khadr, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, whose aggressive defense and impromptu news conferences have riled military superiors.