UN expert wants detainees in Guantanamo Bay freed or tried

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — All detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison should be freed or transferred to U.S. federal courts for trial by the Jan. 22 deadline set by President Barack Obama, a U.N. human-rights investigator said Monday.

Martin Scheinin, who reports on the protection of human rights in the war on terror, said the U.S. Navy-run prison in Cuba should not be closed by trying to prosecute detainees through military commissions, which he said do not meet international human-rights standards despite “small fixes.”

The prison was created by former President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a detention center for suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere.