UN ‘has reliable accounts’ of torture at US base

UN human rights experts seeking to visit the US base at Guantanamo Bay said yesterday they have reliable accounts that suspected terror detainees being held there have been tortured.

The four independent experts said the US had not responded to their numerous requests to check on the conditions of terror suspects at the US Naval base in Cuba, as well as US facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places of detention.

They said their request for a visit was “based on information, from reliable sources, of serious allegations of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees, arbitrary detention, violations of their right to health and their due process rights.”

“Many of these allegations have come to light through declassified [US] government documents,” they said.

A US spokesperson said the request was still being reviewed in Washington.

Leandro Despouy of Argentina, specialist on the independence of judges and lawyers, said: “We are all worried about this situation.” The expert on torture, Manfred Nowak of Austria, said the failure of the US to respond is leading the experts to conclude that Washington has something to hide.

“At a certain point you have to take well-founded allegations as proven in the absence of a clear explanation by the government.”

Mr Nowak said the experts have received a number of allegations about abuse of US detainees.

The experts, who report to UN bodies on different human rights issues, said they had yet to hear back from Washington on their requests to visit the detention facility.

The UN human rights investigators have been trying to visit Guantanamo since early 2002.