Guantanamo prison camp should be closed, says EU

Luxembourg, June 13 : The suicides of three Arab detainees at Guantanamo show that the US prison camp should be closed, the European Union said today.

Two Saudis and a Yemeni hanged themselves with clothes and bed sheets in maximum security cells on Saturday, the U S military said, the first prisoners to die at Guantanamo since the United States began sending suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives to the prison on the island of Cuba in 2002.

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, whose country holds the EU presidency, said the 25-nation bloc would raise the issue at a summit with U S President George W Bush in Vienna next week.

''We have emphasized over and again that from our point of view the government of the United States should take measures to close Guantanamo as quickly as possible,'' Plassnik said.

''For a country like the United States, committed to freedom, to the rule of law and to due process, this is an anomaly,'' she said after chairing a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

The executive European Commission said the suicides only underscored its view of the camp.

''Guantanamo should be closed. This is an occasion to reiterate that statement,'' External Relations Commissioner Benita ferrero-Waldner told reporters.

Luxembourg's foreign minister criticised a statement by a U.S.

official yesterday that the suicides were a ''PR move''.

''It's hard to understand why when three people kill themselves, that is an attack on America. Something has to change in the American mentality,'' Jean Asselborn told reporters.

Colleen Graffy, U S deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, told the BBC World Service the suicides were a ''good PR (public relations) move to draw attention.'' But another senior U.S. official rowed back from the remark today.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Cully Stimson, speaking to BBC radio, said: ''I wouldn't characterise it as a good PR move. What I would say is that we are always concerned when someone takes his own life. Because as Americans we value life, even the lives of violent terrorists who are captured waging war against our country.'' The prison at the U S naval base in Guantanamo Bay holds about 460 foreigners captured during the U.S.-led war to oust al Qaeda from Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. They are held indefinitely without trial or the right to family visits.

Reuters

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