The U.S. Defense Department released on Friday the names of hundreds of detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The names were contained in documents that the Pentagon released following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Associated Press.

The documents were previously released in June last year also in a lawsuit by the Associated Press but with the detainees' names and nationalities blacked out.

The U.S. government has kept secret the names, home countries and other information about the detainees at Guantanamo, but a federal judge ordered the release by March 3, rejecting government arguments that releasing the identities would violate the detainees' privacy and could endanger them and their families.

An Associated Press report said the names were scattered throughout more than 5,000 pages of transcripts of hearings in which detainees defended themselves against allegations that they were "enemy combatants."

Earlier on Friday, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Pentagon would release 317 sets of records of hearings into the status of detainees as "enemy combatants," but the records did not include all 490 people currently detained at Guantanamo.

The United States opened the prison on its Navy base in Guantanamo in January 2002, and so far 490 prisoners are still being held there.

Most of the detainees were captured in the US-led war in Afghanistan, but only 10 of them have been charged with crimes so far.

Source: Xinhua