The prospect of the United States charging Guantanamo Bay detainees before new military tribunals unleashed a torrent of protests Thursday among human rights groups.

The New York Times reported that Defence Secretary Robert Gates would soon lift an order blocking new cases from being initiated against detainees in special courts known as military commissions, a ban President Barack Obama ordered on his first day in office.

The Pentagon would not immediately confirm the report.

According to the Times, three detainees will be referred for new charges, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of having organized the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in Yemen.

Nashiri is among three Guantanamo detainees US authorities acknowledge were tortured. He was subjected to the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding, as well as threatened with a gun and a power drill.

"Trying Guantanamo detainees in a system that is designed to ensure convictions, not fair trials, strikes a major blow to any efforts to restore the rule of law," the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement.

It urged the Obama administration to try the suspects in US federal courts, which have "well-established rules of procedure and evidence."

The decision to resort to military commissions for cases such as Nashiri's "raises serious questions about whether commissions are being used as a forum to hide the use of torture and base convictions on evidence that would be too untrustworthy to be admitted in any real court," the ACLU added.

About 30 detainees at the Guantanamo prison, a US naval base Obama had hoped to close within his first year in office. But he later backpedalled in the face of congressional opposition.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents some Guantanamo detainees, said it was "very disappointed" in Obama, predicting the move will "cost the United States foreign popular and diplomatic support that is essential to legitimate law enforcement efforts against terrorism."

The military commissions, launched in 2006 under former president George W. Bush and reformed in 2009 by Obama, "serve as a secondary system of justice for the Arab and Muslim men subject to them and have been repeatedly discredited," it added.

Joining the chorus of critics was Human Rights First, which cited Obama's own defense one month ago of using federal courts to try terrorism defendants.

"But with the exception of one Guantanamo detainee who was convicted in federal court last month, President Obama has failed to use that tool," the group said in a statement.

If the military commissions begin anew without a clear break from Bush-era policies, "President Obama will be left with a detention and trial policy that looks an awful lot like that of his predecessor: military commissions and prolonged detention with no end in sight," it added.

Families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks said "we fully expect that this inadequate alternative to our well-tested federal court system will continue to delay our desire for justice to be served" nearly 10 years after 9/11, according to a statement released by the organization Peaceful Tomorrows.

(Source: AFP)