FACTBOX: Obama's options for Guantanamo detainee

(Reuters) - By transferring an al Qaeda suspect from Guantanamo to New York for prosecution on Tuesday, the U.S. administration was exercising one of several options President Barack Obama has for handling detainees at the prison in Cuba.

Ahmed Ghailani, accused of murder and other crimes for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, will be the first Guantanamo detainee to go on trial in a civilian U.S. court.

Obama has promised to close the Guantanamo prison by January 2010. In a speech on May 21 Obama identified five categories among about 240 foreign terrorism suspects held there and the different ways they would be handled.

DETAINEES WHO BROKE U.S. CRIMINAL LAWS

The United States, when feasible, will bring to trial in U.S. federal courts detainees who can be charged with violating U.S. criminal laws. Ghailani falls under this category.

DETAINEES WHO VIOLATED 'LAWS OF WAR'

The United States will use special trials run by the U.S. military, called military commissions, to prosecute detainees accused of violating "laws of war." The military panels, first established during the Bush administration, would allow for protection of sensitive sources and methods of intelligence-gathering, the safety and security of trial participants, and the presentation of evidence gathered from the battlefield that cannot be effectively presented in federal courts, Obama said.

DETAINEES ALREADY ORDERED TO BE RELEASED

There are 21 detainees who have been ordered by U.S. courts to be released. Obama did not say where they would be sent.

DETAINEES WHO CAN BE SENT TO ANOTHER COUNTRY

Another group is comprised of detainees who the U.S. government already has determined can be transferred safely to another country. Obama said his review team so far had approved 50 detainees for transfer, and the administration was in talks with a number of countries about the transfer of detainees to their soil for detention and rehabilitation.

DANGEROUS DETAINEES WHO CANNOT BE PROSECUTED

Obama also identified a group of detainees who he said cannot be prosecuted but whose release posed "a clear danger to the American people." These included detainees who had received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, commanded Taliban troops in battle, expressed their allegiance to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden "or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans," Obama said. The president added, "Where demanded by justice and national security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders -- highly secure prisons that ensure the public safety."

(Reporting by Doug Palmer in Washington; Editing by David Storey)