The chief of the Guantánamo war court Thursday spurned President Barack Obama's request to freeze the military commissions trying war-on-terror captives, and said he would hold a hearing next month for an alleged USS Cole bomber in a capital terror case.

The development meant that only withdrawal of the charges could stop Abd el Rahim al Nashiri's Feb. 9 arraignment. A Pentagon source said late Thursday that could happen within days.

Col. James Pohl, an Army judge, wrote in a three-page decision that the war court structure set up by Congress in 2006 left him no choice but to move ahead with Nashiri's case.

The Saudi Arabian is accused of orchestrating the October 2000 al Qaeda suicide bombing off Yemen that killed 17 American sailors, a crime for which the Pentagon war crimes prosecutor seeks military execution.

''The Commission is bound by the law as it currently exists not as it may change in the future,'' Pohl wrote in a three-page ruling.

''The public interest in a speedy trial will be harmed by the delay in the arraignment,'' he added.

The ruling surprised officials from the Pentagon to the White House, who thought the controversial military commissions were effectively on hold.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told The Associated Press that the administration was consulting with the Departments of Defense and Justice "to explore our options in the case.''

At the Defense Department, an official speaking on condition he not be identified, said that a Bush administration appointee still in charge of the war court was likely to withdraw the Nashiri charges to comply with Obama's inauguration day request for a 120-day freeze.

''We will be in compliance with the president's orders regarding Guantánamo,'' said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.

Nashiri is now held at the remote U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba after years of CIA detention in which the agency has confirmed it waterboarded him in secret custody.

`DENYING JUSTICE'

The Cole's former commander, Ret. Cmdr. Kirk Lippold, criticized Obama's order to freeze the war court and empty the prison camps. ''Any delay in moving forward with the military commissions process is denying justice to the victims who have suffered as a result of these terrorist acts,'' he said.

The idea that anyone, including Crawford, the Bush appointee, would try to stop the case ''smacks of undue command influence and politics,'' he added.

Meantime, the Defense Department division that administers the commissions was firmly on hold Thursday, with no war court media flight scheduled for Pohl's Feb. 9 hearing.

Pentagon prosecutors filed identical delay requests soon after Obama took office, arguing that the commander-in-chief sought a 120-day suspension in war court hearings to give the new administration time to study the process.

Other war court judges, including the Army colonel presiding at the death penalty trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged 9/11 co-conspirators, had earlier granted the stay.

Nashiri's Pentagon-appointed defense lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes, said the prosecutor could also dismiss the charges against his client to honor Obama's Guantánamo Executive Order.

''The only way they can give effect to the president's order is by dismissing the charges,'' Reyes said.

The Pentagon announced the charges against Nashiri in June with much fanfare at the Defense Department. Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, then legal advisor at the process, said the war court would ensure that the man the CIA waterboarded ``receives a fair trial consistent with American standards of justice.''

By then, candidate Obama had already said he preferred U.S. criminal trials or traditional military courts martial to the new post-9/11 war court introduced by the Bush White House.

DUE PROCESS

Human rights and international law groups had earlier criticized the war court as soft on due process. So much so that the American Civil Liberties Union mounted a defense fund, and hired lawyers to help on death penalty cases.

Thursday, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero called the judge's order the work of Bush administration ''hangers on'' at the Defense Department who he accused of seeking to ``undercut President Obama's unequivocal statement to shut Guantánamo and halt the military commissions.''

Lippold opposes the idea of moving the 245 war-on-terror captives out of Guantánamo, and argued that foreign-born detainees captured abroad do not deserve the same due process as Americans.

''We shouldn't make policy decisions based on human rights and legal advocacy groups,'' he said in a telephone interview. ``We should consider what is best for the American people, which is not to jeopardize those who are fighting the war on terror -- or even more adversely impact the families who have already suffered loses as a result of the war. ''

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