Biden government wants to close Guantanamo prison

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, wants to close iconic Guantanamo prison before his term endsthe White House spokeswoman said on Friday.

The Democrat thus assumes an electoral promise from Barack Obama, which the latter has never been able to keep for lack of agreement with Congress.

Asked at a press conference about a possible closure of the Guantanamo prison during the tenure of Biden, the spokesperson for the White House, Jen Psaki said: “This is definitely our goal and our intention.”

“We have started a process in the National Security Council (…) to work with the various federal agencies and assess the current situation (…), which we inherited from the previous government”, He said.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump had shown his willingness to keep Guantánamo prison open and “fill it with bad guys”.

Once in office, he retained this position.

Obama had promised the release of some detainees in this military prison which houses detainees linked to the “war on terror”, including Pakistani Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The prison still houses around 40 inmates, 26 of whom are deemed too dangerous to be released, but have not been prosecuted.

The detention center was quickly built on a US naval base at the eastern end of the island of Cuba under President George W. Bush.

This 117 km2 enclave was ceded by Cuba to the United States in 1903, to thank its powerful neighbor for his help in the war against the Spanish.

The first twenty detainees arrived there on January 11, 2002, after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

From that moment, this prison has embodied, throughout the world, the excesses of the fight against terrorism in the United States.

Images of prisoners in orange overalls, behind barbed wire, shocked the world, as did the force-feeding imposed on those who refused to eat.

At the height of its activity, 780 people were arrested at Guantanamo for their alleged links to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Hundreds of them were subsequently released or transferred to their country of origin or to third countries.

(With information from AFP)

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