Guantanamo detainees will get military tribunals

US intelligence chiefs will create a panel of military officers to review whether Guantanamo prisoners are being held legally, officials said today.

Detainees will be notified within 10 days of their right to contest their detention in US courts.

The move follows last week's Supreme Court decision that about 595 foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba could use US courts to challenge their confinement.

Bush administration officials say they believe they have created a legal process for determining the status of these prisoners that will satisfy the justices.

Any prisoner found by the tribunal of three military officers to have been wrongly detained will be released to his country.

But Amnesty International and other human rights groups called the moves an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court's wishes.

"This is a complete farce," said Steven Watt, a human rights lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon said President George Bush had named nine more Guantanamo prisoners as eligible to be tried by a US military tribunal, citing a "reason to believe" they were al Qaeda members or involved in terrorism against the United States.

That brings to 15 the number of Guantanamo prisoners Mr Bush has deemed eligible for such trials, which would be the first of their kind since the Second World War.