Guantanamo detainees freedom fear

[frigidmagi]

BBC

More than 70 prisoners in the American detention camp in Guantanamo Bay do not want to return home fearing what will happen to them, the BBC has learned.

A File On 4 investigation has been told that some detainees were mistreated and tortured, after being sent back to their home countries.

The United States wants to close the prison camp.

But a senior State Department official claims there will be some security risks in letting some detainees go.

President George W Bush has said he would like to end the Guantanamo detention camp.

'Terror risk'

However closing it is going to be easier said than done.

Detainee at Guantanamo Bay
The BBC has been told 70 detainees at Guantanamo fear being sent home

The BBC has been told human rights lawyers say some of the men still in Guantanamo are worried what will happen to them and they do not want to be sent home.

And it is proving difficult to find alternative countries willing to take many of those America is willing to release. Meanwhile, the U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes, Clint Williamson, says there is a trade off in shutting the camp.

Mr Williamson said closing Guantanamo will mean taking risks in letting some of America's terrorist suspects free.

Damn if we do and damned if we don't. On the flip side we could most certainly move some of them into camps in the US proper (German POW in WWII were held in the continental US for the whole war). Stick them in Utah. Course that does mean they will have to be treated in accordance with US laws on the treatment of POWs ... Oh Darn. Woe is us.