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A key U.N. panel on Friday joined European and United Nations leaders in urging the Bush administration to close its prison in Guantanamo Bay, saying the indefinite detention of terror suspects there violates the worlds ban on torture.
The report by the Committee Against Torture came as the U.S. military disclosed that prisoners wielding improvised weapons clashed with guards trying to stop a detainee from committing suicide.
The panel also said the United States should ensure that no prisoner is subjected to torture.
The U.S. government insisted it complies with the treaty, including at the lockup at Guantanamo on Cuba. “It is important to note that everything that is done in terms of questioning detainees is fully within the boundaries of American law,” White House press secretary Tony Snow said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen are among leaders friendly to the Bush administration who have said Guantanamo should close, while British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said it will eventually have to close. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and U.N. investigators also have called for shutting the prison.
President Bush has said he would like to close Guantanamo, but is waiting for a Supreme Court ruling on whether inmates can face military tribunals.
The United States expressed disappointment with the committee report, which was based on two sessions this month with a 25-member delegation of officials from Washington and hundreds of pages of U.S. documents.
“Its unfortunate that they dont appear to have read a good deal of that information or have ignored it, and as a result there are a number of both factual inaccuracies and legal misstatements about the law applicable to the United States,” said State Department legal adviser John B. Bellinger III.
Bellinger, who led the U.S. delegation at the panel hearings, said it is “legally wrong” to say the existence of Guantanamo violates the 1984 U.N. Convention Against Torture.