WASHINGTON: Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said that some Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters could continue to be imprisoned even after being tried and acquitted by US military tribunals, if US officials still believed they were terrorists.

Human rights organizations expressed concern about the policy. But they said it is defensible under international law as long as the US government places a time limit on its detention of prisoners who have not been charged with a crime.

Rumsfeld was clarifying a point made by subordinates last week, when they announced Bush administration guidelines for conducting military tribunals or commissions.

Three hundred Al Qaeda or Taliban prisoners are being held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and more than 200 others in Afghanistan.

US officials say privately that they expect only a small number of them will face charges before the tribunals; a larger number, they say, are likely to be detained indefinitely without being charged. That is because US officials are having trouble obtaining information about the detainees, and most are turning out to be low-ranking fighters.

“It sounds outrageous,” Tom Malinowski, Washington representative of Human Rights Watch, said of the policy of continuing to hold captives who have been acquitted. “But I can envision circumstances where under international law it’s not outrageous.”

Under the Geneva Conventions, he said, “prisoners of war can be held for the duration of a conflict, even if in the meantime they are acquitted of specific crimes.”—Dawn/The Washington Post News Service.