Guantanamo trial given go ahead

The first Guantanamo Bay war crimes trial, involving Osama bin Laden's former driver, can start next week, a federal judge has ruled.

US District Judge James Robertson rejected a request from attorneys for Salim Hamdan, who was the driver for al-Qaeda leader bin Laden in Afghanistan, to stop his trial while he challenges the military tribunal system.

Hamdan, a Yemeni, would be the first prisoner tried in the US war crimes court at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba.

There are about 265 detainees at Guantanamo, which was set up in January 2002 to hold terrorism suspects captured after the September 11 attacks.

Most of those at the base have been held for years without being charged and many have complained of abuse.

Hamdan's attorneys said a landmark US Supreme Court ruling last month made clear the detainees are entitled to fundamental constitutional rights.

But the judge sided with the arguments by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John O'Quinn, who said a 2006 law backed by US president George Bush allows such challenges only after a trial takes place.

The Guantanamo tribunals are the first US war crimes tribunals since World War Two.

They were established to try non-American captives whom the Bush administration considers "enemy combatants" not entitled to the legal protections granted to soldiers and civilians.

Human rights groups have criticised the Guantanamo prison and trial system as inherently unfair.

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