US may miss Australian deadline on Guantanamo inmate

CANBERRA, Feb 6 (Reuters) Senior US officials said on Tuesday they would be unable to meet deadlines set by Canberra for the trial of Australia's sole Guantanamo Bay inmate, as Prime Minister John Howard stepped up pressure over the case.

In an acknowledgement that David Hicks's case is straining relations with one of Washington's closest allies and placing election-year pressure on Howard's conservative government, two U.S. officials appeared by video link to explain the hold-ups.

''We are very anxious to move forward,'' John Bellinger, legal adviser to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told Australian journalists.

''It has been a frustrating experience for our administration, for our departments, to not be able to move forward with these trials.'' The US military prosecutor at the weekend filed charges against three Guantanamo inmates, Australia's Hicks, Salim Hamdan of Yemen and Omar Khadr of Canada.

The move was the first step toward trial under military commissions set up by the Bush administration last year to try foreign terrorism suspects held at the U.S. military base in Cuba.

But Howard, who faces re-election some time after August amid a growing public outcry over Hicks's long detention, told Australian television he was ''very unhappy'' at the length of time getting Hicks before a military court.

''We will be harassing the Americans from now on, at every point, to ensure that the deadlines that are set under the new legislation are met,'' Howard said.

Howard last month imposed a February deadline on Washington.

But Sandra Hodgkinson, from the State Department's Office of War Crimes, said Hicks's trial may not start until July, around the same time Howard prepares to face voters. Opinion polls now show 62 percent oppose the handling of the Iraq war.

Several government lawmakers urged Howard to bring Hicks back to Australia and take more control of an issue they said was starting to hurt the government's election prospects.

Howard told them in a closed-door meeting that Washington had not handled the Hicks case well and he was uncomfortable it had taken three years to charge him, a government spokesman said.

Hicks will be returned to Australia whether he is acquitted or convicted as Canberra says he can serve any jail sentence at home.

Hicks, 31, was arrested in Afghanistan in late 2001 and is among around 395 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters being held in Guantanamo. Hicks faces charges of providing support for terrorism and attempted murder in violation of the law of war.

REUTERS RL VV0905