Guantanamo cases proceed despite Obama freeze

By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - The Guantanamo war crimes trials remain officially frozen while U.S. President Barack Obama weighs how to proceed with the terrorism prosecutions but several of the cases are still very much in motion.

The chief judge in the Guantanamo court, Army Col. Stephen Henley, ordered the public release on Tuesday of a document in which five defendants boastfully repeated their claims of guilt in plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Military lawyers are still filing legal documents in other cases in anticipation that the Guantanamo trials will resume as soon as Obama's freeze order expires on May 20.

Another judge has already scheduled pretrial hearings at Guantanamo for the week of July 6 in the case against Tanzanian Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, accused of supplying equipment and support for the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania.

After taking office in January, Obama ordered a four-month freeze on proceedings while his administration decides whether it will move the Guantanamo prosecutions into the regular U.S. civilian or military courts or keep the widely criticized special tribunals established by the Bush administration.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Commander J.D. Gordon, said the filings, document releases and scheduling did not violate Obama's order, which only prohibited bringing new charges or holding war court sessions at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"We are in compliance with the president's executive orders," Gordon said on Tuesday.

Obama has ordered the detention camp at Guantanamo shut by January 2010 as part of an attempt to restore America's human rights image and is still weighing what to do with the 241 remaining captives, many held without trial for seven years.