WASHINGTON, 15 June 2006 — The Defense Department has suspended all military trials for “war on terror” suspects at the Guantanamo prison camp, where three detainees committed suicide over the weekend.

The decision came as the US Supreme Court was expected to rule imminently on the military tribunals’ legality.

“All sessions in all cases currently referred to trial by Military Commissions are stayed until further notice,” the Pentagon said in a statement posted Monday but dated Saturday, the day the three detainees were found hanged in their cells.

The statement does not explain the reasons behind the suspension.

Only 10 of the 460 inmates held as “enemy combatants” have been formally charged since the camp opened in early 2002 at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hearings for some detainees were previously suspended pending a ruling from the top US court, but other sessions had continued. A decision is expected this month.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in March in a pivotal case brought by Guantanamo detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan that could determine the fate of the tribunals.

President George W. Bush’s administration has come under pressure from human rights groups and even allies to close down Guantanamo. Bush acknowledged yesterday that the Guantanamo Bay has damaged the US image abroad and said it should be shut down.

“I’d like to close Guantanamo, but I also recognize that we’re holding some people there that are darn dangerous and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts,” Bush told a news conference in the White House Rose Garden.

Human rights groups said the suicides showed the inmates were in a state of despair because of the indefinite nature of their detention.

Five UN human rights experts yesterday joined mounting protests against the US prison camp in the wake of the suicide of three inmates, saying the controversial facility should be shut down.

“The simultaneous suicide of three detainees in the Guantanamo military base on June 10 was to a certain extent foreseeable in light of the harsh and prolonged conditions of their detention, and reinforces the need for the urgent closure of the detention center,” they said.

The five independent experts, who act as monitors for the UN’s human rights body, have repeatedly taken Washington to task over Guantanamo.

In February they released a highly critical report accusing the United States of violating a host of international human rights rules and called for the immediate closure of the facility and the trial or release of the hundreds of inmates held in legal limbo.

The five experts — Leandro Despouy, special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, arbitrary detention expert Leila Zerrougui, and Paul Hunt, Manfred Nowak and Asma Jahangir, who work respectively for the UN’s health, torture and religious freedom watchdogs — also renewed their long-standing demand for an unfettered visit to Guantanamo.

Before the three suicides Saturday, the US military had reported 41 suicide attempts by 25 detainees.

The attorneys for the three dead detainees — two Saudis and a Yemeni — chided the military Tuesday for failing to notify them about their clients’ demise for three days.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which said it represented all three detainees found dead in their cells Saturday morning, called for an “emergency, independent inspection” of the Guantanamo facility to confirm the cause of their death.

The three were the first inmates to die at the detention center since it opened.

Earlier, the Pentagon rebuffed calls by human rights groups for an outside investigation into the suicides.