GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- An Army judge making his debut at the war court Thursday set an Oct. 8 trial date for Canadian captive Omar Khadr, accused of the grenade killing of a U.S. Delta Forces medic.

Army Col. Patrick Parrish, who replaced a retiring military commissions judge, set the date during a morning session while the Pentagon experienced breakdowns in its attempt to implement a dual trial system for the first time.

In one court, Khadr sat in the defendant's chair listening while his lawyers protested that the Pentagon prosecutors had not yet released certain crucial, top-secret documents necessary for the defense.

In another, Afghan Mohammed Jawad sat with ankles shackled together while his defense lawyer argued for dismissal of attempted murder charges, on grounds the Pentagon general overseeing the war crimes court had pressured prosecutors to fast-track trials.

But at the media center, part of the state-of-the-art $12 million Expeditionary Legal Complex, the audio feed broke time and again during testimony in the Jawad case.

Live testimony beamed from the Washington Beltway was inaudible for 22 minutes in the morning, during a defense lawyer's inquiry of a case prosecutor who was testifying remotely.

The afternoon session featured a Harvard Medical School sleep deprivation expert testifying -- amid an eerie, at times deafening echo -- from Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts.

Khadr, 21, is accused of throwing a grenade during a firefight in Khost, Afghanistan, July 2002 that killed Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, of Albuquerque, N.M., and faces a maximum penalty of life in jail. Jawad, about 23, an Afghan man born in a refugee camp in Pakistan, allegedly threw a grenade into a Kabul bazaar that wounded two U.S. soldiers and their Afghan translator.

Both men were captured as teenagers, and defense lawyers for each have sought special consideration for their clients as former ''child soldiers'' who have been held here for years.

Each man's lawyer has also claimed that the young men were abused at Guantánamo and complain that the government has refused to turn over evidence they need to prepare their cases

Parrish set the Oct. 8 war crimes trial date for Khadr after reeling off a series of deadlines for pretrial hearings and motions.

With other cases suspended, this is the second trial date set under a Pentagon push to get some trials underway before the Bush administration ends.

Before that, Osama bin Laden's driver, a Yemeni, has a late July trial date.

''This is not set in concrete,'' said Parrish, whose predecessor, Army Col. Peter E. Brownback III, had refused to set a date until the prosecutors released more discovery material. ``We'll try to shoot for that and see where we go.''

The idea of the special, state-of-the-art monitoring centeris that reporters can dash between two trials fed simultaneously to flat-screen television monitors -- separated by two cement walls, eight feet apart.

But Thursday morning, while Parrish presided in one courtroom, it was often impossible to hear Jawad's judge, Army Col. Stephen R. Henley, preside at his trial.

Escorts fiddled with the volume in search of the sweet spot that didn't overwhelm the sound of one trial or the other.

At a key moment, the audio went dead when a case prosecutor testifying by closed circuit feed from Washington responded to a defense reporter's query about whether he was worried his testimony could torpedo Jawad's trial.

''You feel a bit conflicted today in having to testify potentially in a manner that might result in dismissal of charges against Mohammed Jawad?'' asked Air Force Maj. David Frakt, Jawad's Pentagon-appointed defense lawyer.

The lips moved on the face of Army Lt. Col. William Britt, who at one point was deputy chief prosecutor.

But no sound came out.

The morning episode was the latest trial for the beleaguered war court infrastructure. It abuts a tent city and trailer park called ''Camp Justice'' where the Pentagon is housing lawyers, clerks and other court officials in order to accommodate an anticipated rush to this Navy base for the trials of up to 80 of the 270 war on terror detainees held here.

Some are accused of crimes that carry the death penalty.

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