Guantanamo inmates set for US jail transfer
Sunday November 15 2009
A significant number of the remaining 215 inmates of Guantanamo Bay could be transferred to a maximum-security prison in rural Illinois, according to a source in President Barack Obama's administration.
The source described the Thomson Correctional Centre, a 1,600-cell maximum security facility built in 2001, as the "leading contender" to house a number of suspected terrorists detained at the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba, which Obama has vowed to close.
The president, a former Illinois senator, is understood to have spoken to the state governor, fellow Democrat Pat Quinn, about the issue. The prison, 150 miles from Chicago, has never been fully operational due to budget problems and now houses 200 minimum-security prisoners. Under the proposal, it would be sold to the federal government to be used as a "super-maximum" facility.
Speculation over where Guantanamo inmates would be housed has been heightened after last Friday's announcement that the five key alleged plotters in the September 11 attacks -- including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- will be tried by a civilian court in New York, in the same district where the Twin Towers once stood.
The US Justice Department also announced the legal processes that other detainees would face, including an alleged plotter in the bombing of the US destroyer Cole in 2000, who will go before a military tribunal.
The decision to try Mohammed and four other suspects in a federal court before a jury has already provoked a heated debate in the US. Critics have questioned the staging of a civil trial for those who see themselves as engaged in a conflict with America and the west.
Any decision to move detainees from Guantanamo to the US -- already opposed by many US politicians and banned by Congress -- would also be highly controversial.
Thomson prison is near the Iowa border on the Mississippi river. It is surrounded by a double fence, which is partly electrified.
© Guardian
Sunday Independent
