UN body urges US to shut Guantanamo, "secret jails"

By Stephanie Nebehay

05/19/06 -- - GENEVA, May 19 (Reuters) - The United Nations top anti-torture body told the United States on Friday that any secret jails it ran for foreign terrorism suspects, along with the Guantanamo Bay facility, were illegal and should be closed.

In its first review of U.S. policy since Washington launched its war on terrorism, the Committee against Torture also urged President George W. Bush to ban interrogation methods that could be regarded as torture or cruel treatment.

It cited use of dogs to terrify detainees, "water-boarding" which is a form of mock drowning, and sexual humiliation, saying that some detainees had died during questioning.

The U.S. State Department rejected the recommendations to close detention facilities as being beyond the committee's anti-torture mandate.

The group of 10 independent experts, who have moral authority but no legal power to enforce recommendations, said the United States "should ensure that no one is detained in any secret detention facility under its de facto effective control".

"Detaining persons in such conditions constitutes, per se, a violation of the Convention," said the body which examines compliance with the 1987 U.N. Convention against Torture or other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The United States openly holds hundreds of terrorism suspects, most arrested since al Qaeda's Sept. 11 attacks, at its prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The U.N. committee voiced concern at "reliable reports of acts of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" by U.S. military or civilian personnel.

It said that "confusing interrogation rules", and vaguely defined techniques such as putting detainees in "stress positions", had led to serious abuses.

The United States "should cease to detain any person at Guantanamo Bay and close this detention facility, permit access by the detainees to judicial process or release them as soon as possible..." the committee said.

John Bellinger, top legal adviser at the U.S. State Department, said the U.N. findings contained "factual and legal inaccuracies".


"ACTS OF ABUSE IN THE PAST"

"Clearly, there have been acts of abuse in the past ... and we have made ... an effort to ensure abuses don't happen again," Bellinger told Reuters by telephone from Washington.

"We also think they have gone beyond their mandate in a number of areas -- recommendations like closing Guantanamo Bay and calling Guantanamo a per se violation of the Convention. We think there is no legal or factual basis for that," he added.

Amongst terrorism suspects allegedly being held in undisclosed locations is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, supposed operational mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, rights groups say.

Bellinger, asked about secret detentions, said Washington disagreed that holding individuals without visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was "a per se violation of the Convention against Torture."

"In any of our detention facilities, torture is absolutely prohibited at all times and in all places by all government agencies," Bellinger said. "The Convention against Torture doesn't speak to detention arrangements, it speaks to torture."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said President George W. Bush had already said he wanted to close Guantanamo Bay and was waiting for the Supreme Court to decide whether trials should be through military or civilian courts.

Activists urged Washington to comply with the U.N. findings.

Reed Brody, special counsel for Human Rights Watch, said: "It is not legally binding, but the committee is the authoritative interpretation of what the Convention means."

The committee also had concerns about domestic U.S. jails, particularly at the use of electro-shock devices, the shackling of women inmates during childbirth and police brutality.

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