LAT reporter 86'd from Guantanamo

Carol J. Williams was put on a military flight out of Guantanamo Bay along with reporters for the Miami Herald and Charlotte Observer, on orders from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office. The Pentagon says the issue was unequal access for other media, not coverage of the three suicides by detainees. Editors for the Herald and Observer objected. "Given the controversy that has surrounded the detention facility since its inception, if the government has nothing to hide there, it ought to allow free and broad access to the news media there," Herald editor Tom Fiedler told Editor & Publisher.

Williams' lede in today's paper:

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — International condemnation of the Guantanamo prison mounted Tuesday, as lawyers, doctors and ethicists called for changes in the treatment of the reportedly despondent prison population, after three suicides among the terrorism suspects last weekend.

She is the paper's Caribbean bureau chief, if the online directory is up to date.