U.N.: U.S. tortures Guantanamo detainees

‘Serious violations’
“In the case of the Guantanamo Bay detainees the U.S. executive operates as judge, as prosecutor, and as defense counsel,” the report said. “This constitutes serious violations of various guarantees of the right to a fair trial before an independent trial.”

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special investigator on torture and one of the five experts, said the report was a draft and had not incorporated U.S. comments. It was expected to be made public later in the week.

“It is a preliminary version,” Nowak said, refusing to comment on its substance. “This is an unauthorized preliminary report which might be changed.”

U.S. officials faulted the experts for rejecting an invitation to visit Guantanamo Bay, saying it fundamentally undermined the accuracy of their findings.

“The U.N. rapporteurs were invited to visit Guantanamo Bay, and they chose not to,” said Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York. “Had they visited, they would have found that there is no torture going on.”

In an unusually heated briefing Monday, McCormack added that the United States made a “good faith offer” to the U.N. envoys to visit the prison.

The five experts had sought invitations from the United States to visit Guantanamo Bay since 2002 and accepted the offer in December. But they reversed that decision when they were told they would not be allowed to interview detainees.

McCormack dodged questions about whether it would have been possible for the envoys to do a complete report without access to detainees.

“Fact-finding on the spot has to include interviews with detainees,” Nowak said. “What’s the sense of going to a detention facility and doing fact-finding when you can’t speak to the detainees? It’s just nonsense.”

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