After judge’s ruling, female guards may handle 9/11 defendants at Gitmo

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Word of a judge’s decision to return female guards to handling the alleged 9/11 plotters has reached the Guantanamo detention center, where the guard force commander says he’ll seek to provide religious accommodation but the job, not gender, will drive staffing decisions.

Army Col. Steve Gabavics, showing reporters around a portion of the Detention Center Zone, said he learned Friday that the judge had lifted a Jan. 7, 2015, temporary restraining order on women escorting the defendants to court or legal meetings.

Army Col. James L. Pohl ruled for the women, saying their right to do the same jobs as their male counterparts trumped the cultural and religious objections of the five Muslim men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

 Now it’s up to Gabavics, the chief of the guard force, to decide if and when to return women to escorting the defendants at the secret prison for former CIA captives, Camp 7.

“Because every one of our guards is trained for it, doesn’t matter male or female, if the mission dictates, they’ll do the escort,” Gabavics said. “For everything we do we try to accommodate the religious desires of the detainees because it maintains the peace. That goes for food and everything else.”

But, he said, “The bottom line is every one of our guards is properly trained, is effectively trained, is efficiently trained to perform the mission set.”

It was not known how many, if any, women are currently assigned to Task Force Platinum, the code name of the special Army unit that guards Camp 7.

“We’ll obviously look at what the mission’s requirements are and who we have on the guard force at a given time,” he also said.

The alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammad, and four alleged accomplices are due in court July 18 for pretrial hearings in the death-penalty case that charges them with nearly 3,000 counts of murder.