Camp seven (Guantanamo)

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Camp Seven (also known as Camp Platinum) is the most secure camp known within the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.[1][2]

Its existence was kept secret for the first two years of its use. It was constructed to hold the fourteen "high-value detainees"[3] who had been held by the CIA, and were transferred to military custody on 6 September 2006.

Details

The detainees held in this camp are placed in hoods when transferred from the camp to other locations for their military commission or other purposes.[4][5] Some of the detainees, who faced charges before the Guantanamo military commissions, had attorneys who were initially told that they could not interview their clients. The attorneys were told it would be a breach of the camp's security for them to know the camp's location.[6] When attorneys Suzanne Lachelier and Richard Federico offered to wear the same hoods the detainees wore to visit the camp, they were eventually allowed to visit the camp without wearing blindfolds. They were transported to the camp in the same windowless van as the detainees, so they did not know the camp's location.

Attorney James Connell was the first person to visit a client at the prison. He visited his client Ammar al Baluchi at Camp 7 in August 2013.[7]

A 2013 budget request from the United States Southern Command for new prison construction at the base was presumed by reports to be for the replacement of Camp 7, though specifics of existing facilities were not discussed.[8]

According to an article by Carol Rosenberg, published in The New York Times, on 17 September 2019, Camp Seven had at least two recreation yards.[9] At a preliminary hearing held that day prosecutors read a transcript of a conversation Ammar al Baluchi had with another captive, conducted by yelling over the wall of his recreation yard to the nearby recreation yard of the other man. It had not been known, until the release of this transcript, that the recreation yards contained hidden listening devices.

See also
  • Camp No—an alleged secret detention and interrogation facility

References
  1. Patrick M. Walsh (23 February 2009). "DoD News Briefing With Adm. Walsh From The Pentagon". Department of Defense. Archived from the original on 9 May 2009.
  2. "'Platinum' captives held at off-limits Gitmo camp". Miami Herald. 7 February 2008. Archived from the original on 22 May 2009.
  3. Leopold, Jason (4 November 2011). "DOD Won't Say What Prompted Guantanamo Commander To Order "Security Search" Of High-Value Detainees' Cells". The Public Record. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  4. Andrea J. Prasow (23 April 2008). "U.S. v. Hamdan – Special Request for Relief – Supplement" (PDF). Office of Military Commissions. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 August 2008. Retrieved 25 December 2008.
  5. Carol Rosenberg (13 May 2009). "Guantanamo judge who defied Obama issues new ruling". The State. Archived from the original on 18 May 2009.
  6. "Lawyers See Secret Section of Gitmo". The Ledger. 17 November 2008. p. A14. Archived from the original on 14 June 2011. Retrieved 28 July 2009.
  7. McKelvey, Tara (20 August 2013). "A visit to Guantanamo's secretive Camp 7". Retrieved 17 January 2023.
  8. Charlie Savage (21 March 2013). "Money Requested for New Prison at Guantánamo". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 22 March 2013.
  9. Carol Rosenberg (17 September 2019). "Prosecutors Disclose Taped Confession in 9/11 Case". The New York Times. Guantanamo Bay. p. A15. Retrieved 18 September 2019. The contents of the secret recordings emerged in a pretrial hearing ordered by the judge, Col. W. Shane Cohen, who is deciding whether to let prosecutors admit a F.B.I. account of Mr. al-Baluchi's confessions at Guantánamo in January 2007, known as his "clean team statement."
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