A U.N. inquiry into U.S. practices at Guantanamo finds, unsurprisingly, that the prison facilitates torture and violates international law, and investigators criticized the Bush admin for failing to take steps to close it.
“We note with the greatest concern that the government has not taken any steps to close Guantanamo,” the rights experts said in a joint statement read by Algerian Leila Zerrougui, a specialist on arbitrary detention. “Indeed, a new block has been built and is set to open this month.”
The U.S. government is blowing the report off, saying it’s based reports in the media and allegations from detainees’ lawyers. Which may have something to do with the fact that the investigators, who’ve been trying to get access to Guantanamo since 2002, were told they could visit the prison but not interview detainees. They went ahead with the inquiry and say they came by “reliable accounts” of torture.
