U.S. military lawyers want September 11 charges dropped

By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - Charges against five Guantanamo prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks should be thrown out because they were improperly influenced by a Pentagon legal adviser, U.S. military lawyers said in documents filed on Friday.

Also on Friday, a U.S. military judge postponed the Guantanamo trial of Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, until July 21, to allow time to assess his mental competency.

Hamdan was to be the first prisoner tried in the U.S. war crimes court at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba.

The Guantanamo tribunals are the first U.S. war crimes tribunals since World War Two and have faced steady criticism from human rights activists and reversals in American courts.

The tribunals were established after September 11, 2001 to try non-American captives whom the Bush administration considers "enemy combatants," who are not entitled to the legal protections granted to soldiers and civilians.

In the case of alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other prisoners who could face execution if convicted, the military defence lawyers said the charges were tainted by meddling and "overreaching" on the part of Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann.

Hartmann was assigned to provide impartial legal advice to the Pentagon appointee overseeing the Guantanamo trials.

But the former chief prosecutor of the tribunals testified last month that Hartmann essentially took over the prosecution team, pushing it to use evidence obtained through coercion and demanding "sexy" cases that would pique the interest of the American public.