Kudos to the Washington Post for covering this, but how frustrating that they don't mention which paramilitaries' cases have been sealed. This account is frustratingly vague (even somewhat garbled) in some other ways too. See our bracketed interjections. From the Sept. 11 edition:

Sealed Colombian cases trigger debate
Since 2006, more than a dozen of Colombia's most notorious paramilitary leaders have been extradited to the United States to face drug trafficking charges in U.S. District Court in Washington.

The extraditions stunned Colombians, who had hoped that testimony from the men, given as part of a national amnesty program, would help expose the truth about two decades of vicious murders, assaults and kidnappings. In videotaped confessions in Colombia, one had taken responsibility for more than 450 slayings.

But outrage over the extraditions reached a boiling point earlier this year when U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton blocked public access to seven of the paramilitary leaders' cases, erasing virtually every trace of their existence.

There is no way to know if the men have negotiated lenient sentences—or if they are even still in custody. An eighth defendant, accused in Colombia of murdering a judge, was released on his own recognizance, records show, after his cousins in College Park vouched for him.

The Colombian cases are drawing new attention to the practice of sealing entire court files, triggering a broader controversy over judicial secrecy.

Though court policies discourage this degree of secrecy, a 2009 internal study showed that federal judges order it in thousands of cases a year, sometimes without justification.

Some judges not only block public access but also remove file numbers and all other signs of a case from the record. In the D.C. district, there is no uniform procedure for sealing, leaving individual judges to decide how much to disclose, Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth said.

The cases against the Colombian paramilitaries show the stakes of a transparency debate that might otherwise seem academic.

"More than anger, I feel powerless," said Bela Henriquez, whose father, Julio, was kidnapped and killed on the orders of one defendant. [Which one?—World War 4 Report] "We don't know what they are negotiating, what conditions they are living under. What guarantee of justice do we have?"

The Supreme Court has ruled that public access to court cases is protected by the First Amendment because it is a crucial check on judicial power.

But some factors—national security material, an ongoing government investigation, vulnerable witnesses or victims—can justify secrecy.

The cases involving the Colombians were probably sealed to protect their safety, because they are cooperating with U.S. drug enforcement authorities, several former prosecutors said. "It's very possible," Lamberth said. U.S. prosecutors, defense attorneys and Walton declined to comment.

An agreement involving secrecy would require authorization at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Prosecutors must obtain approval from the deputy attorney general before requesting, or agreeing to, the sealing of a criminal case...

Roxanna Altholz, acting director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of California at Berkeley, who represents Colombian victims of paramilitary violence, said the United States has broken a promise made on the day of the extraditions by Ambassador William R. Brownfield.

[Refering to "the day" of the extradition implies that the cases at issue are those of 14 (not "dozens") extradited on May 13, 2008. Has there been another single-day mass extradition "since 2006"?—World War 4 Report]

"The victims, their representatives and the prosecutors of Colombia will continue to have access in the U.S. to the legal system, to the extradited individuals, and to their assets," Brownfield said on May 13, 2008, in Colombia.

"So far," Altholz said, "none of those promises have been kept."

Human rights lawyers have been unable to track the status of at least 25 other Colombian paramilitary members being prosecuted in various U.S. courts because substantial portions of their cases have been sealed.

[Meaning "25 other" than the 14 extradited on May 13, 2008?—World War 4 Report]

Lamberth acknowledged that victims may feel deprived of justice when cases are sealed.

"I honestly don't know how we balance letting victims have a say," he said. "If there is a way to do it without endangering" the lives of those cooperating, "we are open to that."

Given their brutal resumes, the whereabouts of the defendants are cause for concern, prosecutors said.

"If one of them could be living in Bethesda, for example, down the street from the Jones family with a dog and 2.5 kids, then the public has a strong interest in knowing that information," said David Weinstein, who prosecuted drug cases as an assistant U.S. attorney in Florida from 1998 to 2009.

One paramilitary leader, Hughes Manuel Rodriguez Fuentes, was released on bond in 2008. Reporters visited an address in College Park where one of Rodriguez Fuentes' cousins lives, according to court records.

"I don't know where he is," said the relative. "And good luck finding him."

Can Roxanna Altholz of the International Human Rights Law Clinic please clarify?