Using the Wi-Fi connection at Starbucks was a better bet than risking putting confidential defense documents on a glitch-prone Pentagon computer network, a senior Defense Department official testified late on Thursday at the Guantanamo trial of five prisoners charged with plotting the Sept 11 hijacked plane attacks.

The Internet link at the local Starbucks was "the best bad option that we had," Air Force Colonel Karen Mayberry, the chief defense counsel for the war crimes tribunal, told the judge.

Defense lawyers have asked the judge to halt pretrial hearings in the death penalty case of the alleged plotters at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base in Cuba until the computer system can be fixed to ensure that outsiders cannot access confidential defense documents.