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U.S. Halts Transfers, Straw Wants Home Trail For British Prisoners
LONDON, Jan. 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, said Thursday it was "far preferable" that British prisoners held at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba should face justice in Britain, while U.S. military officials say they are suspending transfers of prisoners from Afghanistan to the base, news agencies reported Thursday.
Three Britons are among 158 captured Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters detained at the camp. They were captured in Afghanistan during the U.S.-led military campaign against the country's now-crumbled Taliban regime.
"It is far preferable if they are British citizens for them to come to the United Kingdom and face justice here," Straw told BBC radio.
He was speaking after American John Walker Lindh, captured while fighting for the Taliban, arrived handcuffed and shackled at Dulles International Airport outside the U.S. capital late Wednesday, January 23, 2002, and was taken to a nearby jail.
Lindh faces trial in his own country on charges of allegedly conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and supporting terrorist groups.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military put on hold transfers of prisoners to the Cuba base Wednesday, as international criticism of conditions at the makeshift camp have grown since the first detainees were transferred from Afghanistan earlier this month, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The prisoners are being held at the temporary outdoor detention facility called "Camp X-Ray" where each has a separate cell with a concrete floor, wooden roof and chain-link walls.
U.S. officials say transfers are halted to allow detention facilities to be added and upgraded, BBC’s online service said.
The halt is only going to last a few days, with building work likely to continue around the clock, according to a BBC correspondent.
The decision comes amid growing international criticism of the conditions under which Al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects are being held at the base.
Criticism of the U.S. treatment of the Guantanamo prisoners grew after it emerged that they had been handcuffed, blindfolded and shackled during their transfer, and that they were being confined in open-sided wire cells. Some had been sedated on the flight from Afghanistan.
The U.S. administration classifies the detainees as "illegal combatants" rather than prisoners of war, thereby denying them rights enshrined in the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war.
However, it insists they are being treated humanely.
On Tuesday, U.S. Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld angrily rejected the criticism as "just plain false".
"What's going on down there is responsible, humane, legal, proper and consistent with the Geneva Convention," he claimed.
His comments came as U.S. human rights advocates launched a legal challenge against the detention of the prisoners, saying it violated international law and the United States constitution.
The criticism has been spearheaded by human rights groups, including Amnesty International and the International Red Cross.
However, a Pentagon official said criticism of the prisoners' treatment was "not a factor" in the decision (transfer halt).
On a visit to Afghanistan, the head of the American FBI, Robert Mueller, made an unannounced visit to the U.S. military base in the southern city of Kandahar, where Al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners are being held.
He claimed the interrogation of the prisoners had prevented attacks against US targets around the world.
"Information we have picked up since the war has prevented additional attacks around the world," Mueller said, BBC reported.
"Interrogations from Al-Qaeda members detained here in Afghanistan as well as documents... have prevented additional attacks against US facilities around the world."
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