A series of secret military hearings to determine whether 14 detainees at Guantánamo prison should be classified as “enemy combatants” have begun. The prisoners were moved from a secret network of CIA prisons to Gitmo in September. Such a classification could allow the detainees to be prosecuted by military tribunals or held indefinitely.

A military spokesman refused to identify which detainees have appeared before the panel of three officers, with the exception of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, whom they say was a mastermind behind 9/11. The military has barred the media from covering the hearings without a special security clearance. The Associated Press filed a letter of protest, arguing that it would be “an unconstitutional mistake to close the proceedings in their entirety.”

Between July 2004 and March 2005, the US held 558 combatant status tribunals, concluding that all but 38 detainees were “enemy combatants”. Gitmo is currently holding 385 men, and reports of torture are common.

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