Mounting pressure from the international community and human rights watchdogs is helping lawyers of Guantanamo's detainees to win the legal battle against the US Defence Department, a Qatari senior official here said.

Najeeb Bin Mohammad Al Nuaimi, Qatar's former minister of justice and legal adviser to some of the detainees and their families, said the recent liberation of Bahraini and Kuwaiti nationals held at the military's Guantanamo Bay prison camp is the result of a steady pressure of human rights organisations, legal circles and detainees' families on the Bush administration.

"We are winning the legal battle against the US defence, as some detainees are finally meeting with their lawyers, communicating and exchanging letters with their families.

"Some are going to court and others are being released. This is giving them hope again," he said.

"After the US Supreme Court directed the Bush administration that detainees held were entitled to go to court to contest their imprisonment, scores of volunteer lawyers are filing suits against their detention," Al Nuaimi said.

"The judgment of the US Supreme Court favouring their trial and the mounting pressure from the international community is helping us in getting them released."

Al Nuaimi, who runs several law offices in Qatar, is helping relatives of the detainees by working with volunteer lawyers in the US and following up closely on the prisoners' cases.

Speaking to Gulf News, the official said he believes the majority of the detainees, whose cases he has been following, are innocent. Al Nuaimi believes the US has been misled by the Pakistani police forces and the Afghan Northern Alliance.

"Washington is wrongly holding majority of the prisoners. Many of those swept up in the war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan were teenage students, visitors and charity workers. They were sold to the US by Pakistani or Afghani police forces or tribesmen in exchange for thousands of dollars. Their only fault was they were Arabs," he said.

Asked to assess the latest legal developments of the issue, Al Nuaimi said many of those put on trial had been labelled as enemies of war on terror without any evidence being brought against them. Now the US Defence has concluded they are not a threat and is releasing them.

"I believe they were kept for two reasons. The US Defence thought they could collect intelligence information as well as study their behavioural patterns," he said.

"They have are being tortured and many of them have become mentally unstable because they see no reason for their being detained."

However, Al Nuaimi said despite some progress, the issue remains very serious. Many prisoners confined at the detention facility in Cuba have yet to have court hearings after four years of detention, such as Qatari charity worker Jarallah Al Merri.

Others, such as Al Jazeera's cameramen Sami Al Hajj, were due to be released a year ago but are still held without trial in the Caribbean outpost, Al Nuaimi said.

"In addition, the job of the lawyers and their access to their clients is very difficult. I myself submitted a request to visit some of the prisoners and provide them with legal cover, but my request was rejected."

Al Nuaimi is to lecture about the legal developments of the Guantanamo's detainees at the international conference on The Global Struggle Against Torture: Guantanamo Bay, Bagram and Beyond organised by Amnesty International and Reprieve in London next week.

The event is the biggest ever gathering of former "war on terror" detainees, international legal and medical experts.