Preliminary hearings for the first trials of terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay will begin next month when an Australian and three other foreigners go before a US military judge, defense officials said today.
Separately, the US Navy Secretary signed an order to begin "status review tribunals" at the US base today that will give each of the nearly 600 prisoners held here a chance to challenge their indefinite detention as "enemy combatants."
Most of the detainees were captured during the US-led war in Afghanistan and have been held at Guantanamo for more than two years without access to lawyers or courts - a "legal black hole" deplored by human rights groups and which many US allies have challenged.
The four prisoners will be tried at the first US military tribunals - formally called commissions - since World War Two.
Australian inmate Mr David Hicks and three al Qaeda suspects from Yemen and Sudan are scheduled for separate pretrial hearings during the week of August 23rd in a new courtroom in a prison at the Guantanamo base, defense officials in Washington said.
Retired US Army Col. Peter Brownback III will hear pretrial motions, the initial legal step for the commissions.
In a separate process giving all prisoners a chance to challenge their detention, Navy Secretary Gordon England signed the order in Washington for status review tribunals in Guantanamo Bay. If prisoners are determined not to be "enemy combatants" they will be released and returned to their home countries.
"The first tribunals will begin this afternoon. I would expect there would be one (hearing) today," he told reporters at a Pentagon press conference. "We will accelerate as our experience allows."