"Britain and US in Talks over Closing Guantanamo Bay," by Severin Carrell - the Independent (UK), 11 March 2006
The US has asked the British government for advice in preparation for closing down the notorious prison camp at Guantanamo Bay by sending hundreds of alleged al-Qa'ida fighters back to their home countries, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
Senior Bush administration figures have asked British officials for advice on how to hand alleged terrorists over to regimes with a reputation for torture and extra-judicial killings, such as Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Pakistan.
President Bush is under intense and growing international pressure to close down the notorious camp in Cuba, where more than 500 alleged Islamist terrorists and Taliban fighters are being held without trial.
Legal sources in the US have confirmed that senior Bush officials want to send most of these men, including senior aides to Osama bin Laden and at least five British residents, to be imprisoned in their home countries - a process that could start within weeks.
Last week, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asked British ministers about the Government's controversial attempts to deport terror suspects living in the UK back to their home countries in North Africa and the Middle East.
So far the Government has signed three deals with Lebanon, Jordan and Libya in which they undertake not to abuse terror suspects sent back from Britain.
The Government was forced to release more than a dozen alleged al-Qa'ida figures from high-security prisons last year after the House of Lords ruled ministers had breached the Human Rights Act by detaining the men without trial. The US is not bound by similar legislation, but it feels stung by the intense global criticism of its conduct at Guantanamo Bay.
Gonzales was saying rather different things about Guantanamo to public audiences during his recent UK visit. See Gonzales Defends Detention Practices to UK Audience.
Also see:
"US Says Looking at Alternatives to Guantanamo" - Reuters (London), 12 March 2006
The United States is seeking ways to repatriate terrorism suspects held in Guantanamo Bay, a move that could eventually lead to the closure of the detention camp, a senior U.S. official said on Sunday.
"We have no intention of operating Guantanamo any day longer than we have to," U.S. State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Colleen Graffy told Reuters. "If there is another viable alternative to deal with these detainees then that's something we are obviously always looking at."
She said there was no immediate plan to close the camp but that there were ongoing considerations about what to do with the detainees in the long term.
Her comments followed last week's visit to London by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whom the Independent on Sunday reported had asked British ministers about their attempts to deport terrorism suspects to their home countries....
Asked if Washington was talking to Britain about how to repatriate prisoners and close the camp, Graffy told BBC television: "There's continuous discussion about that".
"Hopefully, over the years, we will find a way to either release them to their country of origin or they will declare that they no longer want to kill us," she said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is under pressure at home to take a harder line with his Iraq war ally U.S. President George W. Bush over Guantanamo.
But Blair will not publicly go beyond saying the detention camp is an "anomaly" which must at some point end.
Added 17 March 2006:
"UN Investigator Pushes for Gitmo Closure," by Paul Ames - AP (Brussels), 16 March 2006
The U.N. torture investigator on Thursday urged U.S. allies in Europe to push Washington to close the prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Manfred Nowak suggested European nations should help the U.S. by offering to try some of the detainees or set up an international terrorism tribunal as part of the effort to close the naval base prison....
Nowak, the special U.N. investigator on torture, was one of the authors of a U.N. report last month that said the U.S. must close Guantanamo.
"I hope that the European Union will take up our main recommendation in their dialogue with the United States," Nowak said. "The main recommendation is to close as quickly as possible the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities."
"What we are advocating is a burden sharing, in particular between Europe and the United States," Nowak said. "It's not enough just to call for a closure of Guantanamo Bay, but perhaps some of the European countries could take some of the detainees, bring them before their courts."
Although the U.S. has rejected calls to shut Guantanamo, Nowak said pressure from allies could persuade Washington to close the center. "I am still fairly confident that Guantanamo will be closed," he said.
The European Parliament and EU governments such as Germany have called for Guantanamo's closure, but the EU has not taken a united position.
NPR has been airing a series of reports about Guantanamo this week. This morning's report included a snippet of a US Army officer taking questions from foreign journalists being given a tour of Guantanamo. A South Korean journalist asked if it were true that Americans were tatooing the names or some kind of ID number on the skin of detainees. The fact that such a rumor is making the rounds as far afield as Korea is a disturbing indicator of what Guantanamo and our detention practices have done to this country's image.
"Military Grows More Defensive About Guantanamo Prison," by Jackie Northam - Morning Edition, NPR, 17 March 2006 (links to an audiofile of the report)
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