Washington ? In a development the Bush administration had hoped to avoid, the stories of about 60 detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base have spilled out in court papers.

A U.S. college-educated detainee asks plaintively in one: “Is it possible to see the evidence in order to refute it?”

In another transcript, the unidentified president of a U.S. military tribunal bursts out: “I don’t care about international law. I don’t want to hear the words ‘international law’ again. We are not concerned with international law.”

Expressing defiance in some instances and stoic acceptance of their fate in others, the once-nameless and still-largely faceless detainees appeared last year before tribunals that, after quick reviews, declared they were enemy combatants who could be held indefinitely.

The government is holding about 550 terrorism suspects at the Navy base in Cuba. An additional 214 have been released since the prison opened in January 2002 — some into the custody of their home governments, others freed outright.

Little information about them has been released through official channels. But stories of 60 or more are spelled out in detail in thousands of pages of transcripts filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, where lawsuits challenging their detentions have been filed.

The Guantanamo detainees come from about 40 countries and were picked up mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The administration designated them as enemy combatants.

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled last June that the detainees may challenge their imprisonment. The Pentagon responded by creating the tribunals and pushing through reviews of everyone at Guantanamo by year’s end.

A military spokeswoman, Navy Capt. Beci Brenton, said Friday the Pentagon believes the tribunals allow for the review under the court ruling and that each detainee received “a fair opportunity to contest their detention.”

The tribunals also had access to classified evidence that the detainees were not allowed to see, a reason a federal judge said there were problems with the tribunals. An appeals court is considering that issue.