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INTERVIEW-U.N. Rights Expert Say Guantanamo May Close Year-End
Suleiman al-Khalidi
Reuters
July 3, 2006
AMMAN, July 3 (Reuters) - The United Nations' investigator on torture said he believed the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison could be closed by the end of the year following a U.S. court ruling striking down military tribunals created to try its prisoners.
Manfred Nowak said a majority of the inmates, suspected by Washington of terrorist activity, could be repatriated or sent under a U.N. monitored system to member states in the EU and countries like Chile and Argentina that accept refugees.
"In my opinion it's fair to now call for a plan of action. It might be under U.N. mediation where EU countries and others countries of origin could take up the majority who have no indictments," he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court passed a ruling last Thursday that tribunals created by U.S. President George W. Bush after the Sept.11 attacks were unlawful and violated the Geneva Conventions.
"It will speed up the closing of Guantanamo Bay by year end," Nowak, the special rapporteur of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights on torture told Reuters in a weekend interview in Amman.
A minority estimated between 5 to 10 percent of the existing 460 inmates with enough evidence to indict them should face ordinary criminal tribunals but not military tribunals in the United States, he added.
Nowak who was on a recent visit to Washington said efforts were being stepped up by EU member states to help the U.S. administration to close the facility, housing largely inmates captured in Afghanistan.
"I see many negotiations that are going on, silent diplomacy. I know that," said Nowak.
President Bush said last month he wanted to close the U.S. military prison in Cuba which has drawn international condemnation, but first needed a plan to deal with the "darn dangerous" prisoners held there.
Nowak's proposal of a plan of action could be intended ultimately to provide the basis for a solution.
PRESSURE MOUNTS
A European rights uproar over allegations of a web of secret CIA jails and flight transfers of terrorist suspects stretching from Asia to GuantanamoBay -- a practice known as rendition -- was piling pressure to close down GuantanamoBay.
"There is of course also more and more pressure now because of European investigations. Europe cannot participate in illegal rendition flights in particular to countries where there is torture," he said.
The U.S arguments for holding foreign terrorism suspects in the base had been eroded while evidence of torture had stirred stronger public debate in America, Nowak said.
"So they realise more and more that their legal arguments are very weak and that no other country in the world will share them," he added.
Nowak cited a catalogue of serious ill treatment including "very harsh interrogation methods" by exposing detainees to extreme temperatures, putting people in stress positions and detaining them incommunicado with no clear prospect of release.
"This insecurity I think that is what causes so much distress so much desperation that people actually attempt suicide or commit suicide go on hunger strike. It's cynical, it puts people in total insecurity," he added.
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