Gitmo detainees worry state GOP

DENVER • Gov. Bill Ritter triggered a tempest last week when he said Supermax, the ultra-maximum-security federal prison in Florence, was "well-suited" for some of the detainees who will need a new home as a result of President Barack Obama's order closing the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Republican lawmakers pounced on the remark, gathering 35 signatures on a petition asserting that the nearly 250 Guantanamo detainees, many of them accused of membership in terrorist groups, would threaten "the safety and security of the communities in which they will ultimately be housed."

The petition, which was sent to Ritter this week, also expresses "grave concern about the economic and security risks that the relocation of Guantanamo detainees to Colorado pose for our state and local communities."

What the petitioners are saying is that Supermax, the most secure prison in America and 40 miles from Colorado Springs, is not secure enough to safely house the most dangerous prisoners.

In its 14 years of operation, no one has ever broken out of Supermax, escaped while being transferred there, or killed a guard.

But the mere presence of Guantanamo detainees makes the petitioners nervous. State Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, said Thursday that the arrival of Guantanamo detainees would be "an emotional catastrophe," making Coloradans worry that they could be a terrorist target.

State Sen. Ken Kester, a Las Animas Republican whose district includes the prison, was quoted in a Republican news release as saying: "I don't really think it would be appropriate to mix these terrorists with the current prison population. They're going to be in our prisons recruiting inmates to kill American servicemen and civilians."

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, the Colorado Springs Republican whose district includes Supermax, also weighed in. "I am extremely concerned about security risks to the men and women who would guard suspected or convicted terrorists," he said in a letter sent Wednesday to Obama. "The risk to the communities that house these facilities would also be unacceptable."

Lamborn also noted that space is limited at Supermax. Some Guantanamo detainees have already been cleared for release for lack of evidence, and the Obama administration has said it will seek to transfer others to the custody of their home governments. But scores of detainees will still be in U.S. custody, and Thursday's prisoner census listed Supermax as having 462 inmates, only 28 below its capacity.

"I must insist," Lamborn told the president, "that you not transfer these suspected terrorists into facilities in the State of Colorado."

But convicted terrorists are already here. Supermax's inmate roster includes Zacarias Moussaoui, a Sept. 11 conspirator, as well as Ramzi Yousef and Omar Abdel-Rahman, plotters of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Supermax also houses home-grown terrorists such as Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Eric Rudolph, who bombed the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta; and Terry Nichols, a plotter of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

An independent assessment of conditions in Supermax is hard to come by. It is one of the U.S. government's most secret places, and Ron Wiley, superintendent of the federal correctional complex in Florence, denied a request for an interview and a Supermax tour, saying in an e-mail message Wednesday that "it would be inappropriate to respond to the speculation of the placement of the Guantanamo detainees."

But according to press reports from 2007, the first and only time reporters were allowed to observe the operations of Supermax, the inmates classified as most dangerous are isolated from the rest of the prison population and from one another, living in private, sound-proof cells.

According to several accounts, the most dangerous prisoners are locked down 23 hours a day. If and when they receive exercise privileges, they exercise alone. CBS News reported that inmates get a single 15-minute phone call per month, with guards listening in. Visitors are strictly limited and are likewise monitored.

Unless procedures have changed, Supermax prisoners cannot plot among themselves or organize other inmates, as Kester suggested.

Wiley declined to confirm any details of the prisoners' treatment, saying only that Supermax "continues to operate safely and efficiently."

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Contact the writer: 476-1654 or dean.toda@gazette.com