White House dismisses UN Guantanamo report

17/02/2006| IslamWeb

Washington is resisting mounting international pressure to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. It has dismissed a new United Nations report which says inmates there faced treatment amounting to torture. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has backed calls for the prison to be shut down.

"I think sooner or later there will be a need to close the Guantanamo and it will be up to the government to decide and hopefully to do it as soon as it is possible," he told reporters.

'A discredit to the UN' is how the White House has described the report. It insists detainees are treated humanely.

Spokesman Scott McClellan said:

"We know that these are dangerous terrorists that are being kept at Guantanamo Bay.

"They are people that are determined to harm innocent civilians or harm innocent Americans. They were enemy combatants picked up on the battlefield in the war on terrorism. They are trained to provide false information," he insisted.

Adding its voice to the clamour, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly for a resolution urging the prison be closed and inmates given a fair trial. The UN investigators say their findings are based on interviews with past detainees, lawyers and replies to questions put to the US government. They declined an offer to visit the centre last year because the US would not allow them to interview individual inmates.

PHOTO CAPTION

Detainees sit in a holding area inside Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba. (REUTERS)