Under an order from a U.S. judge, the Pentagon is set to release the names of several hundred detainees at its detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

It will be the first time the Bush administration publicly links names with previously revealed information about many captives at the island prison, according to the report.

The change came when the administration decided this week not to appeal a federal judge's order to provide names that were redacted from documents released under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Associated Press.

Although the administration has previously released thousands of pages related to hearings on whether individual detainees are "enemy combatants," it always withheld the names of the prisoners who participated in those hearings.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff has ordered the Pentagon to release the names by next Friday.

Pentagon officials have confirmed that they will not appeal the ruling, but said the release won't be a roster of the 490 or so detainees now held at Guantanamo.

Instead, it will contain names associated with about 390 hearing transcripts. Some detainees did not participate in the hearings.

U.S. legal experts said the ruling is a step in the right direction but will not quell concerns about the U.S. detention system, in which the U.S. military has been accused of detaining prisoners without due process, lying about their identities, concealing their treatment from the public and denying basic information to the lawyers authorized to represent the detainees.

Source: Xinhua