Attorneys for Omar Khadr said details, including logs of interrogations at this base, could provide grounds to suppress self-incriminating statements. Khadr is accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15.

At a pretrial hearing, Judge Peter Brownback, an Army colonel, said he understood the military's worry that the documents might identify prison officials who fear retribution. But he ordered the government to provide records of Khadr's day-to-day confinement by May 22, in complete or edited form, or else he would suspend proceedings.

Brownback also criticized the prosecution team led by Marine Maj. Jeffrey Groharing for demanding an expedited trial, even though prosecution evidence that the defense requested during the pretrial discovery process was still lacking.

"I have been badgered, beaten and bruised" by Groharing since Nov. 7 to set a trial date, Brownback said. "To get a trial date, I need to get discovery done."

The judge's frustration highlights the dueling interests of two military entities at Guantanamo: the tribunal system, and the Joint Task Force that runs the prison and tightly restricts information about inmates.

Khadr, born in Toronto, was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 and taken to Guantanamo four months later. In a sworn affidavit, he said he was threatened with rape and left short-shackled to a bolt in the floor as long as six hours. He said he was so scared that he told interrogators what they wanted to hear.

Khadr is accused of lobbing a grenade that killed Army Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer during a firefight at an al-Qaeda compound in eastern Afghanistan. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted on charges including murder, conspiracy and supporting terrorism.

His Pentagon-appointed attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, said he believed that Khadr's treatment at Guantanamo was intended to prevent him from recanting a false confession he made under coercion at Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

Failure to produce the documents could derail what was likely to be one of the first trials of a terror suspect at Guantanamo, where the United States holds about 270 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

A Guantanamo spokeswoman, Navy Cmdr. Pauline Storum, said officials expected to receive guidance soon from the Pentagon that would allow them to "fully support all requests for access to and release of information."