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Judicial Watch

Public Education – The International Program

Public Education – The International Program

International Visitors

Developing nations, especially ones with emerging or fledgling democracies, look to America to study its institutions, laws and the ingenious balance of powers created by our Founding Fathers. Through various programs sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), delegates from these nations visit the United States and are put into contact with organizations like Judicial Watch.  Since 2001, Judicial Watch has been a major participant in the Department of State’s IVLP and other leadership exchange programs, having received over 83 visiting delegations.  As the premier Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigator in America today, Judicial Watch is one of the most sought after transparency and accountability organizations for personal meetings with emerging leaders from around the world who are interested in learning how they can stop corruption and demand accountability from their judges, government officials, and political parties.

The United Nations Department of Global Communications

The United Nations Department of Global Communications hosts monthly briefings and other workshops and an annual conference where representatives of NGOs from every corner of the world come together for the purpose of networking and collaborating on solutions to some of the world’s most challenging problems, from security issues such as crime and violence, hunger and disease, persecution and war, to major development issues of education, job opportunities, and women’s empowerment.

Judicial Watch is associated with the United Nations Department of Global Communications (UN DGC) as a nongovernmental organization whose mission is to promote transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. It fulfills its educational mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach. Its International Program serves as an integral part of its educational program.

Judicial Watch GTMO Observer Program

Judicial Watch was granted observer status by the Pentagon to observe the arraignment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in June of 2008. Since the recommencement of the 9/11 hearings at Guantanamo Bay in November 2011, JW has attended 95 percent of the hearings held at the detention facility, as well as Periodic Review Board Proceedings (PRBs), observing over 190 hearing weeks at GTMO and about 62 PRBs held at the Pentagon and other sites to date.  

See ARCHIVE section HERE.

 

Military Commissions:

ISN 10024 Khalid Sheikh Mohammad et. al.

Pretrial Hearing Weeks

May 4-15, 2026

Events:

May 4 Commission Hearing

Though scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m., the hearings on May 4 did not begin until 1:35 p.m. due to technical difficulties originating at GTMO.

According to the judge, the two weeks of hearing sessions were intended to be devoted entirely to determining the admissibility of the FBI Letterhead Memoranda (LHMs) for ISN 10024 Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), ISN 10014 Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarek bin Attash (bin Attash), and ISN 10011 Mustafa Ahmed Adam Al Hawsawi (Al Hawsawi). The government and the defense expected to argue for three days each, one day for each accused, for a total of six days in open session, followed by two or three days of closed or ex parte arguments over the LHMs.

Prior to argument on the LHMs, the defense team for Hawsawi placed an objection on the record against in-court decisions made during earlier sessions. During those sessions, the lead defense counsel had been hospitalized at GTMO, leaving Hawsawi insufficiently represented at the time.

Further, the defense team for ISN 10018 Ali Abdul Aziz Ali/Ammar al Baluchi (al Baluchi) objected to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) being excluded from on-island observation for the first of the two weeks.

And, finally, all teams motioned (AE 989) to set a date for commencement of trial. Though the judge did not rule on a trial date, he expressed openness to establishing a date from expected pre-trial events according to a plan to be agreed upon by the trial team and defense teams.

 

May 5 Commission Hearing

 The trial team began argument for admissibility of the KSM Letterhead Memoranda on May 5 at

9:00 a.m. and concluded on May 6 at 12:30 p.m. Evidence for admissibility included:

  • Transcripts of testimonies made by FBI and NCIS agents.
  • Interviews with KSM where he acknowledged arranging an interview with a journalist who wrote the “Masterminds of Terror” book and recorded conversations between himself and other detainees in common areas regarding his perceptions of the interrogations by the CIA and interviews with the FBI and NCIS.

Key details showing that KSM participated in the LHM interviews voluntarily, included:

  • Statements he made indicating he knew he could leave or stop the interviews at any time.
  • A statement he made to a fellow detainee that showed he knew information gained by the CIA was inadmissible in court.
  • Reports that KSM was comfortable making fat jokes about the interviewers and asking for photographs of his family.

 

May 6 Commission Hearing

 The trial team began open argument for admissibility of the Hawsawi Letterhead Memoranda on May 6 at 2:05 p.m. and concluded on May 7 at approximately 2:40 p.m. Evidence for admissibility included:

  • Transcripts of FBI and NCIS testimony.
  • Recorded conversations between Hawsawi and other detainees in common areas that concerned Hawsawi’s opinions on the FBI and the interviews.
  • Recordings and transcripts from the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) that discussed Hawsawi’s attitude toward the USA.

 Key details that the trial team relied upon to show Hawsawi voluntarily participated in the LHM interviews included:

  • Hawsawi’s dismissiveness about GTMO postings and personnel when in conversation with other detainees.
  • Hawsawi’s professional interview regarding his beliefs, Al Qaeda connections, and 9/11 involvement.
  • The fact that when Hawsawi was previously at GTMO under CIA custody, he experienced no EITs, so he would have little to no fearful association with GTMO.
  • Most of what he said in the LHM interviews he also said in the CSRT, as well as to fellow detainees.

The defense team for Hawsawi interrupted the trial team’s arguments on May 7 from 9:06 to 10:23 a.m. to argue for a continuing seal on CSRT transcripts and recordings, but the judge ruled that the defense did not meet its burden for a continued seal.

 

May 7 Commission Hearing

The trial team began open argument for the admissibility of the Bin Attash Letterhead Memoranda on May 7 at approximately 3:35 p.m. and concluded on May 8 at approximately 4:00 p.m. Evidence for admissibility included:

  • Numerous recordings of Bin Attash’s conversations with other detainees.
  • Testimony by interviewing FBI agents.
  • Letters that the detainee sent through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Key details that the trial team relied upon included:

  • Bin Attash participated in the interviews on nine different days, months apart, and amused himself by creating “cliff-hangers” at the end of many sessions.
  • The fact that Bin Attash both hugged and politely threatened the main interviewer at the end of the first session.
  • The fact that Bin Attash expressed frustration at being repeatedly told that the subjects covered and the duration of the interviews were “at your pleasure.”
  • That many of the things Bin Attash told the FBI in the LHM interviews he also wrote to his family in ICRC letters.

 

May 11 Commission Hearing

The defense team for KSM presented its argument for disqualification of the LHM on May 11 beginning at 9:00 a.m. and ending at 6:50 p.m. Key details that the defense relied upon to demonstrate involuntariness of the LHM statements included: 

  • Drawing parallels between repetitive questioning by CIA debriefers and repetitive statements by the FBI that anything said before did not matter, and the FBI needed to hear it.
  • The similarity between rewarding cooperative behavior in the detainees by providing comfort items in GTMO cells to that of CIA debriefers rewarding detainee cooperation by refraining from Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs).
  • The fact that the FBI did not deliberately ask about ongoing coercion.

 

May 12 Commission Hearing

The defense team began argument for the disqualification of the Hawsawi Letterhead Memoranda on May 12 at approximately 9:20 a.m. and concluded on the same day at approximately 6:15 p.m. Key details that the defense relied upon included:

  • Rulings by prior judges that Hawsawi’s conditions of confinement were substantially similar between GTMO and several black sites.
  • Dr. Mitchell’s assertion that the Site 2 interrogations used harsher and aberrant techniques that counted as torture and not as EITs.
  • Hawsawi’s major depressive episodes would render his interviews to be involuntary whether he was impacted by torture or not.
  • Unlike KSM, Hawsawi never asserted any limits or walked away from the LHM interviews. The defense noted this serves more as evidence of Hawsawi not believing he had that power than of him being willing to answer questions.

 

May 13 Commission Hearings

The defense team for Bin Attash began argument for the disqualification of the Bin Attash Letterhead Memoranda on May 13, 2026, at 10:20 a.m. and concluded the same day at 5:32 p.m. Key details that the defense team relied upon included:

  • Studies of the attenuation of coercion and trauma are generally observed after only a very short time in trauma. The Renditions Detention and Interrogation (RDI) program lasted for years, so attenuation may not be possible and would likely not occur at the same rate.
  • After an extended period of harsh treatment, rapport-building, like dining with Bin Attash on tea and dates, takes on a coercive quality.
  • All of the ICRC letters post-date the LHMs, so what Bin Attash wrote in them was informed by the LHM interviews.
  • That Bin Attash threatened interrogators while he was in the RDI program, so joking and threats to interviewers are not necessarily indications of voluntariness.
  • The lead defense counsel for Bin Attash, who is specialized in false confessions, argued that the narrative and pride shown during the LHM interviews was a conditioned personality response adopted during the RDI program.

The week of January 26-30, 2026, was complicated by a heavy snowstorm in the national capital region, which restricted access to the Remote Hearing Room (RHR) and multiple observer sites. The ISN 10019 Encep “Hambali” Nurjaman (Nurjaman) pre-trial commissions proceedings convened at 9:00 a.m. on January 26, 2026, for a day of closed session argument to accommodate federal government closures in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia. No transcript of the closed sessions has been released.

The commission came to order at 10:00 a.m. on January 27, 2026, for a brief open session. This open session was not telecast to remote observation locations because the federal government in the national capital region remained closed, and Fort George G. Meade was at limited operating capacity. The judge began the session by informing the accused of his right to attend his pre-trial proceedings and obtaining his permission to continue closed session arguments with two members of his defense team not in attendance. With Nurjaman’s consent, the judge recessed the commission and conducted closed sessions for the remainder of the day. A transcript of this open session has been released.

On January 28, 2026, attorney-client meetings occupied the courtroom for part of the morning, and the judge called the commission to order in open session at 10:09 a.m. The remote observation site at Fort Meade was made available to the public, though ongoing inclement weather and snow-clearing operations rendered the site understaffed due to dangerous automobile and pedestrian conditions. The judge announced he would hold open sessions that day to finalize motions (AEs 129, 123, 124, and 125) argued in closed session over the previous two days.

See HERE for full summary.

 

 

In the Media

The Hill published the following article by Thomas Wheatley, a participant in Judicial Watch’s GTMO Observer Program.

“Trump, honor Obama’s agreement to release Guantanamo detainee,”
The Hill, October 4, 2017

About Thomas Wheatley, https://www2.gmu.edu/news/424386

International Visitors and United Nations DGC Briefing

  • 2018
  • 2017
  • 2016
  • Countries represented by international visitors to Judicial Watch in 2016:
    Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Albania, Czech Republic, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Togo, Finland, Georgia, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Kuwait, Lesotho, Nepal, Netherlands, Philippines, Vietnam, and South Sudan
  • 2015
  • Wrap up for 2015
  • Countries represented by international visitors to Judicial Watch in 2015:
    Macedonia, Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH),Bulgaria, France, Georgia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, Algeria Brunei, Croatia, Egypt, Hungary, India, Lithuania, Malawi, Nepal, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Venezuela

 

  • Summary of Meeting with Macedonian Delegation – July
  • UNESCO Event Summary SREBRENICA – July
  • 2014
  • Wrap up for 2014
  • Countries represented by international visitors to Judicial Watch in 2014:
    China, Argentina, Columbia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Argentina, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Italy, Republic of Kosovo, Moldova, Netherlands, Serbia, , Kenya, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Honduras
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