New Rules for Lawyers in Tribunals

The Pentagon revised rules Friday for civilian lawyers who want to help defend terrorism suspects before military tribunals.

The department also said two more suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been given military lawyers.

The Bush administration has been planning for military tribunals for more than two years, but has announced no date for the first one. The tribunals could try alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The revised legal rules guarantee that a defense lawyer will know ahead of time if the government plans to listen in on attorney-client conversations and allows the lawyer to tell his or her client that their conversations may not be private.

The new rules assure defense lawyers that the government will not eavesdrop on conversations they have among themselves.

Any eavesdropping must be approved high up the Pentagon chain of command and only if it is likely to help gather information about terrorist activities or prevent new attacks, a directive signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said.

Anything a suspect says to his lawyer could not be used against him at trial, and military prosecutors will not know what, if anything, Defense intelligence officials may have learned from the conversations.

The revised rules also clarify that civilian defense lawyers can get help from other outsiders who are not on a Pentagon-approved list of tribunal lawyers, such as legal researchers in the lawyer’s home office.

The two suspects given military lawyers Friday, Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul of Yemen and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi of Sudan, have not been charged with any crime. Two other suspects were assigned lawyers earlier -- Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen and David Hicks of Australia.

About 650 suspected members of Al Qaeda or the Taliban are being held at the high-security prison at Guantanamo Bay.