UNITED NATIONS, Feb 17: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Thursday that the United States should close down the prison at Guantanamo Bay as soon as possible supporting the conclusion of the five experts report.
He told reporters in New York “I think sooner or later there will be a need to close Guantanamo. I think it will be up to the (US) government to decide, and hopefully to do it as soon as is possible.”
Saying that “I cannot say that I necessarily agree with everything in the report.” Mr Annan added “the basic point, that one cannot detain individuals in perpetuity and that charges have to be brought against them and be given a chance to explain themselves, and be prosecuted, charged or released, I think is something that is common under any legal system.”
The White House spokesman Scott McClellan rejected the call to shut the camp, saying the military treats all detainees humanely and “these are dangerous terrorists that we’re talking about.”
The panel’s report, released on Thursday said the United States must close the detention facility “without further delay” because it is effectively a torture camp where prisoners have no access to justice.
The 54-page report summarising an investigation by five UN experts, accused the United States of practices that “amount to torture” and demanded detainees be allowed a fair trial or be freed. The panel, which had sought access to Guantanamo Bay since 2002, refused a US offer for three experts to visit the camp in November after being told they could not interview detainees.
Mr Annan said the report by a UN-appointed independent panel was not a UN report but one by individual experts. “So we should see it in that light,” he said.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the report will be presented to the UN Commission of Human Rights, which appointed the panel, when it convenes on March 13 in Geneva.
Manfred Nowak, the UN investigator for torture who was one of the panel’s experts, told reporters in Geneva that the detainees at Guantanamo “should be released or brought before an independent court.”
“That should not be done in Guantanamo Bay, but before ordinary US courts, or courts in their countries of origin or perhaps an international tribunal,” he said.
“We want to have all information about secret places of detention because whenever there is a secret place of detention, there is also a higher risk that people are subjected to torture,” he said.
The US is holding about 490 men at the military detention centre. They are accused of links to Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime or to Al Qaida, but only a handful have been charged.
The UN investigators said photographic evidence —- corroborated by testimony of former prisoners —- showed detainees shackled, chained and hooded. Prisoners were beaten, stripped and shaved if they resisted, they said.
The report’s findings were based on interviews with former detainees, public documents, media reports, lawyers and questions answered by the US government, which detailed the number of prisoners held but did not give their names or the status of charges against them.
