WASHINGTON – In the first decisions from a hastily arranged review process, Navy Secretary Gordon England announced Friday that four detainees at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were properly classified as “enemy combatants” and will not be released.

England said 17 other detainees have completed the hearing process and that decisions are pending in those cases.

The review tribunals were hurriedly set up to allow suspects being held at the naval base to challenge their detention in the wake of a June Supreme Court ruling that said Guantanamo prisoners have the right to a judicial review of the evidence against them.

The sessions began July 30 on the base, with each captive given a chance to make a case for release. The captives weren’t allowed to have a lawyer, however.

In the first four cases to be decided, Adm. Jim McGarrah, who provides the final review of the sessions held on the base, decided the detainees should be kept at the prison camp.

There is no appeal to the decision, though the detainees still have the right to seek a review of their cases in U.S. federal court.

The Pentagon decided not to disclose the nationalities of the four captives, at the request of their home governments, said Navy Cmdr. Beci Brenton.

England said more translators are on the way to Guantanamo to speed up the process. On Thursday, status tribunals were held for five detainees.

One 40-year-old Kuwaiti captive argued Thursday that he had worked for an Islamic charity in Afghanistan and had no connection to the al-Qaida terrorist network. The military said the detainee was an organizer for the al-Wafa charity and was closely associated with a spokesman for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Several legal experts say the status reviews are an attempt by the Pentagon to avoid the oversight of federal judges as long as possible. Since the Supreme Court decision, petitions on behalf of more than 100 detainees have been filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judges haven’t acted on them yet.

“These tribunals are much like the screening called for by the Geneva Conventions that was not held after these people were captured,” said Eugene Fidell, the president of the nonpartisan National Institute of Military Justice. “Two years later, removed from the site of capture, it’s difficult to check information.”

Most of the detainees were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the early months of the war on terrorism and have been held for more than two years without hearings or access to lawyers. In many cases, they were captured by warlords and turned over to U.S. forces.

Since the camp was established in January 2002, the military has released 129 detainees and turned over 27 captives to the custody of other countries. There are currently 585 prisoners there.

Human rights groups have criticized the tribunals, saying they fall far short of the need to provide a forum to challenge detentions with the help of lawyers.

The tribunals are different from military commissions, scheduled to begin later this month, in which 15 detainees have been designated to face war crimes charges.