At the very moment Guantanamo Bay’s top legal adviser was in the make-shift courtroom declaring that no one was reading private legal documents or violating detainees’ lawyer-client confidentiality, the detention center’s guards were doing the exact opposite.

When the detainees returned from hearing those pledges, they found their cells ransacked, all their legal documents and defense paperwork missing; seized, they would later learn, as part of what officials say is a “routine” inspection.

Gitmo layer George Massucco defended the move, insisting that the guards hadn’t been ordered to seize the legal documents but had found “materials contained therein were disturbing to them” and decided to take them anyhow.

The guards also took all the toilet paper from one of the detainees after learning that he had made hastily written notes regarding his case on some toilet paper, and Massucco said they had since been ordered to return the toilet paper.

The incident made today’s hearings all the more awkward, with one of the detainees complaining about being forced to attend the hearings, expressing concern that more of his possessions were going to turn up missing while he was away.