Four Guantanamo detainees will be formally charged with war crimes this week as the US military opens the first legal hearings for foreign prisoners captured in Afghanistan and held in at the US base in Cuba.
Beginning today, the prisoners from Australia, Sudan and Yemen will appear separately, unshackled and in civilian clothing before a panel of five US officers who will read the charges against them at the arraignments, officials at the Guantanamo base said on Sunday.
The pretrial hearings in the first US military tribunals since the World War Two have frustrated human rights activists, who consider the trials fundamentally unfair.
The defendants, among 585 held at the base, were captured during the US-led war on Afghanistan in 2001. All four are charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes and could be imprisoned for life if convicted.
If acquitted, they still could be held indefinitely under Bush administration policy that considers them enemy combatants in the "war on terror" prompted by the September 11th attacks. They could only be freed if a separate military panel finds they are not a danger and have no information that could prevent future attacks, military officials said.
Mr David Hicks of Australia is accused of fighting for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and conducting surveillance of US and British embassies on its behalf. He faces charges of attempted murder and aiding the enemy, in addition to the conspiracy charge.
The other three are an alleged driver and security guard for Osama bin Laden, Mr Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen, and two men described by the military as bin Laden bodyguards, Mr Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul of Yemen and Mr Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi of Sudan. They are accused of providing security for the network that carried out the September 11th attacks.
This week's hearings will be held in a courtroom set up at the base. About 60 spectators, including military officials, journalists and legal and human rights observers, will attend.