One of the people questioning the lieutenant’s decision to stay is the lieutenant himself. His presence in court allows the case to move forward without experienced counsel. “That is clearly a problem, because there is no way I qualify as learned counsel,” he said. “But leaving the client without a lawyer to protect his rights could be even worse. I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing, but I don’t think I really had a choice.”

The dispute that prompted the resignations of the rest of Lieutenant Piette’s team started this summer when the defense learned that conversations with their client — conversations that are typically strictly confidential — were likely being monitored by the government.

The defense team searched the detention block room at Guantánamo where they met with Mr. Nashiri and spotted something that to them confirmed government monitoring. The original lead defense attorney, Richard Kammen, said in an interview that what he found was classified, so he was barred from disclosing it, even to his client. He objected to the court, but the judge in the case ruled this fall that the client had only limited rights to confidentiality. Mr. Kammen quit the case in protest, saying it was ethically impossible to stay. Two assisting lawyers followed.

Image Mr. Nashiri in an undated photo. He faces the death penalty on charges of orchestrating the bombing of the destroyer Cole in 2000. Credit... ABC, via Associated Press

“We were gobsmacked,” said Mr. Kammen, who for years has jousted with the military tribunal, making his appraisal of it clear by wearing a kangaroo pin on his court jacket. “Under the law, we had to quit. We had no choice.”

Both the judge and prosecutors were furious at the exodus, which threatened to derail an already slow-moving case. The lead civilian prosecutor, Mark Miller, denounced the defense for what he called “a scorched-earth strategy to obstruct the proceeding by any means, however frivolous, however cynical.”

The judge, Air Force Col. Vance Spath, ordered the defense back to court in October. When they refused, he ordered a Marine general in charge of the defense to force them back. The general also refused, and was confined in a trailer next to the razor wire-ringed court in November for contempt. At the most recent hearings in late January, Judge Spath was still trying to compel the lawyers to appear, so far without success.