Guantanamo should be closed - EU

The suicides of three Arab detainees at Guantanamo show that the US prison camp should be closed, the European Union said yesterday.

Two Saudis and a Yemeni hanged themselves with clothes and bed sheets in maximum security cells on Saturday - 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.

"Guantanamo should be closed. This is an occasion to reiterate that statement," EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told reporters on arrival at a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers in Luxembourg.

Luxembourg's Foreign Minister criticised a statement by a US official on Sunday 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, US 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 US official rowed back from this remark on Monday.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence 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 US naval base in Guantanamo Bay holds about 460 foreigners captured during the US-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.

Last month, the Foreign Minister of the EU's Austrian Presidency, Ursula Plassnik, said Guantanamo was "an anomaly" and should be closed as quickly as possible. The European Parliament has also called for the camp's closure.