(Adds fresh quotes, detail on sentence)

By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, March 25 (Reuters) - The charges and rules have changed, but the criticism has a familiar ring as the U.S. military prepares to put Australian David Hicks on trial again as the first prisoner to face a new U.S. war crimes tribunal.

Hicks, 31, is scheduled to be arraigned on Monday in the first session of the United States' newly reconstituted war crimes tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in southeast Cuba.

He is charged with providing material support for terrorism by fighting with al Qaeda in Afghanistan during the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Hicks will return to the same courtroom where he faced a military tribunal in 2004 on charges that were later dropped due to court challenges.

His military lawyer said the new system, like the old, is an ad hoc creation without established rules and that Hicks should be tried in the U.S. court-martial system that has been used for decades.

"When you don't use the established rules and procedures you risk convicting an innocent person and allowing someone truly guilty to escape justice by challenging the system," said the defense lawyer, Marine Maj. Michael Mori.

Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and was sent a month later to Guantanamo, where he claims he was tortured and threatened until he cooperated with interrogators. The U.S. military disputes that and calls it "nonsense."

After 2 1/2 years at the notorious prison camp, Hicks appeared before a military tribunal in 2004 and pleaded not guilty to attempted murder of coalition forces, aiding the enemy and conspiring to commit war crimes.

His trial was put on hold pending legal challenges and the charges were dropped when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that U.S. President George W. Bush lacked authority to create the tribunal system to try foreign captives on terrorism charges.

The U.S. Congress created a new trial system last year and Hicks is the first of the 385 Guantanamo prisoners to be charged in what are formally called military commissions and are already the subject of new court challenges.

Hicks' lawyers, and human rights monitors observing the hearings, say the rules are still stacked to ensure convictions and allow the use of hearsay and information obtained through coercion.

'NO FRANKENSTEIN'

The chief prosecutor said the criticism has been effective in turning public opinion against the Guantanamo tribunals, but he expects that to change once the military begins laying out evidence in the trials.

"This criticism that we've created some novel Frankenstein, cobbled-together kind of system is totally inaccurate," Air Force Col. Moe Davis, the chief prosecutor, said on Sunday. "We've got nothing to be ashamed of and we're going to tell our story."

The U.S. military accuses Hicks of supporting terrorism by attending al Qaeda training courses, conducting surveillance on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and fighting U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan. The charges say the former farm hand met Osama bin Laden at one camp and took the opportunity to gripe about the lack of al Qaeda training manuals in English.

Hicks' lawyers said in court documents that the U.S. Embassy in Kabul had been closed since 1989 and that there was no evidence Hicks ever fired on U.S. forces.

If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison, though Davis said prosecutors would recommend about 20 years. The United States has agreed to send him to Australia to serve any sentence.

His father, Terry Hicks, was scheduled to attend the hearing along with Australian Consul General John McAnulty, and will be allowed a brief private meeting with his son, whom he last saw during the 2004 hearing.

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