Guantanamo tribunals start soon

Some detainees have been held for nearly three years

The Pentagon says that reviews into the status of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay could begin as soon as next week.

Panels of three military officers will decide whether an inmate is being legally held as an enemy combatant.

All the nearly 600 detainees have now been notified of their rights, even though they will not be able to get access to defence lawyers yet.

The move follows a Supreme Court ruling enabling inmates to challenge their detention through the US legal system.

The Pentagon says the review process could lead to some prisoner releases.

Critics say the latest measures at Guantanamo Bay are not enough to satisfy the recent Supreme Court ruling.

Limited measures?

All detainees were informed in writing of their rights to challenge their detention, the Pentagon said; if the detainees were unable to read, the information was given verbally.

US Navy Secretary Gordon England said 90-95% responded positively to the notice of the tribunals.

The others responded negatively. "That is, crumpled up the notice and threw it on the floor, whatever," he said.

These tribunals are just another attempt to keep Guantanamo a lawless enclave Joe Margulies US defence lawyer

The case of each of the 600 prisoners will be reviewed by the military tribunals.

• Detainees can testify and request affidavits from witnesses

• They will not have defence lawyers - but a "personal representative" - a military officer who is not bound by rules of confidentiality and can pass on any incriminating evidence provided by the detainees for use in future trials

• The detainees will not have access to classified information in their files, but their representative is supposed to give them an unclassified explanation of the case against them, the US navy secretary said

The father of one of the British prisoners Azmat Begg, said his son Moazzem Begg was in no fit state to give evidence after months of solitary confinement.

"How can you say it is a proper judgement when the prosecutor is a military man, the judge is a military man and the defence is a military man?" he added.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group that represents 53 Guantanamo detainees and challenged their detention at the US Supreme Court, led criticism of the reviews, describing them as a "sham".

"These tribunals are just another attempt to keep Guantanamo a lawless enclave," said Joe Margulies, a lawyer with the group.

"The tribunals can base their decisions on secret evidence hidden from the prisoner," Mr Margulies was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

"The procedures they use can change at any time, even if they recommend release, Secretary England can overturn their ruling, for any reason he wants, and the so-called personal representative provided for a detainee is, by design, not the prisoner's advocate."

Human rights group Amnesty International also criticised the reviews.

Reacting to the announcement that most prisoners had welcomed the chance to challenge their detention, spokesman Alistair Hodgett said: "That's hardly evidence that they - or anyone else - believe for a moment that the process is fair or just."

Abu Ghraib aftermath

Separately, the Office of Detainee Affairs has been set up to deal with all foreign prisoners held by the defence department.

This is in the light of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq which continues to batter the Pentagon, says the BBC's Pentagon correspondent Nick Childs.

The Abu Ghraib abuse continues to haunt the Pentagon

The rules for handling reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are also changing.

Critics say past warnings of prisoner mistreatment by the ICRC were overlooked.

They will now be forwarded to a committee in the Pentagon rather than being dealt with by field commanders.

These moves may be tacit acknowledgements of previous failures, but the critics are likely to argue that they are too little, too late, our Pentagon correspondent says.