UN urges nations to accept Guantanamo detainees

More countries should offer to take in Guantanamo prisoners to help US President-elect Barack Obama close the detention camp for terrorism suspects, the UN's torture investigator said yesterday.

About 255 men are still held at the US-run naval base in Cuba, a symbol of aggressive interrogation methods that exposed the US to allegations of torture.

Washington has cleared 50 of the detainees for release but cannot return them to home countries due to the risk they would be tortured or persecuted there. Around 500 others have been freed or transferred to other governments since 2002.

Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur for the UN Human Rights Council, said more countries that had criticised US treatment of Guantanamo detainees should accept some prisoners so that Mr Obama could fulfil a campaign pledge to shut down the prison camp.

He told Austrian state radio that most of the inmates in Guantanamo were there only because they were "in the wrong place at the wrong time" and had nothing to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.

Portugal wrote to its EU partners last month urging them to resettle Guantanamo detainees.