[JURIST] Meetings between Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees and representatives of their governments may have been recorded, according to a Tuesday Washington Post report [text]. In 2002 and 2003, the US State Department advised foreign delegations that their meetings would be videotaped despite public assertions by the US Department of Defense (DOD) [official websites] that it did not regularly record such sessions. Some detainees have alleged that they were threatened with violence or torture during the meetings, but DOD officials has refused to say whether interview footage exists. The DOD would not say which countries had sent agents to Guantanamo, but e-mails obtained by the Post listed Bahrain, Belgium, France and Russia among them. AP has more.

The DOD previously denied that detainee meetings were routinely recorded, but later admitted it had footage of a meeting between Canadian agents and Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr [DOD materials; JURIST news archive]. Last month, lawyers for Khadr released an excerpt [video; JURIST report] of a 2003 interrogation of Khadr conducted by Canadian officials, marking the first time Guantanamo interrogation footage has been available to the public. The eight-minute clip is part of seven hours of footage given to lawyers after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled [text; JURIST report] in May that Khadr had the right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [text] to see confidential documents and videos compiled by Canadian officials. Last week, Guantanamo detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] walked out of the courtroom [JURIST report] at his military commission trial, refusing to watch a video depicting one of his interrogation sessions.