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

GENEVA, May 19 (Reuters) The United Nations committee against torture told the United States today 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 US policy since Washington launched its war on terrorism, the influential body of 10 independent experts 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 United States ''should ensure that no one is detained in any secret detention facility under its de facto effective control'', said the committee, which has moral authority but no legal power to enforce its recommendations.

''Detaining persons in such conditions constitutes, per se, a violation of the Convention,'' said the body which examines compliance with the 1987 UN 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 September. 11 attacks in 2001, at its prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

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.

Rights groups say the United States is also believed to be holding in undisclosed locations Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged operational mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, a member of the Hamburg, Germany cell that led them, amongst others. Washington declines to comment.

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