WASHINGTON, Nov 12: The Obama administration will launch an intensive effort to close the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as soon as it takes charge, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The process will start with a review of the classified files of the approximately 250 detainees at the prison.
Closing the notorious detention facility would be among the most potent signals the incoming administration could send of its sharp break with the Bush era, the Post reported.
“The move would create a global wave of diplomatic and popular goodwill that could accelerate the transfer of some detainees to other countries,” the report said.
But legal experts consulted by the Post said it could take months or longer to deal with the legal, diplomatic, political and logistical challenges to closing the prison.
Among the thorniest issues will be how to build effective cases without using evidence obtained by torture, an issue that attorneys for the detainees will almost certainly seek to exploit.
Moreover, the new administration will face hard decisions regarding not just the current Guantanamo Bay detainees but also how it will handle future captures of terrorism suspects. During the election campaign, Mr Obama publicly expressed his desire to close the detention facility and favoured federal prosecution of terrorism suspects.
An Obama campaign advisory group was sympathetic to a “try or release” system proposed by advocacy groups such as Human rights First and studies by organisations such as the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington.
Under this proposal, the new administration would shutter military commissions, review the files at Guantanamo Bay to send as many cases as possible to federal court for prosecution, and release the balance of detainees for prosecution or resettlement in their home country or other nations.
The new administration expects that European countries and Persian Gulf states that previously resisted accepting Guantanamo Bay prisoners will be more open to resettling some who are cleared for release or who cannot be sent home because of the risk of torture.
Such cooperation is likely to follow a US decision to settle some small group of detainees in the United States, possibly the Chinese Uyghurs whom the government has said are not enemy combatants.
