Goldsmith believes US military tribunals do not offer "sufficient guarantees of a fair trial."

CAIRO, May 7, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) - In a new legal embarrassment to the Bush administration, British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith believes the existence of the notorious Guantanamo detention center is "unacceptable," joining a growing chorus demanding the US to close it, The Observer reported on Sunday, May 7.

"It is time, in my view, that it should close," the British government's chief legal adviser will tell a global security conference at the Royal United Services Institute this week.

"There are certain principles on which there can be no compromise," Goldsmith will say.

"Fair trial is one of those - which is the reason we in the UK were unable to accept that the US military tribunals proposed for those detained at Guantánamo Bay offered sufficient guarantees of a fair trial in accordance with international standards."

Almost four years after detaining them in the remote, high-security notorious detention camp, the Pentagon released on Wednesday, April 19, the names and nationalities of 558 Guantanamo detainees.

The US had designated the detainees, most of whom were detained in Afghanistan, as "enemy combatants," denying them the rights accorded to prisoners of war under international agreements.

Amnesty International had dismissed Guantanamo as "a symbol of abuse and represents a system of detention that is betraying the best US values and undermines international standards."

Diplomatic Row

The US has been coming under mounting pressures to shut down the infamous detention center. (Reuters)

Goldsmith has harbored grave doubts for some time over the legality of Guantánamo under international law, according to The Observer.

It expected his statements to trigger a diplomatic row between war allies Britain and the US.

Although privately some senior ministers believe Guantanamo should be closed, no one has so far condemned it in such open and trenchant terms.

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland minister, said in February it was his personal belief that the detention center should be shut down.

Prime Minister Tony Blair once described Guantanamo as an "anomaly" that will have to end one day.

US State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Colleen Graffy told BBC television on Sunday, March 12, that Washington was seeking advice from Britain on ways to send terror suspects held in Guantanamo to their home countries and eventually close the facility.

The Bush administration has been coming under mounting pressures at home and from aboard to shut down the infamous detention center.

In an editorial published on Saturday, February 18, The New York Times said the administration must close Guantanamo and account for its prisoners fairly and openly.

This came two days after a report by the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva pressed for the closure of the detention center, saying acts committed against detainees amount to torture.