Italy 'may take Guantanamo inmates'

Italy 'may take Guantanamo inmates'
'Recognition of part in terror fight' says minister
(ANSA) - Sassari, February 13 - Italy could meet a US request to take some inmates from Guantanamo, the controversial US prison President Barack Obama is closing this year, Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa said Friday.

Speaking on a visit to Sardinia, La Russa said he and Premier Silvio Berlusconi had ''accepted this invitation,'' which he said should be seen as recognition of Italy's part in the fight against terrorism.

La Russa did not say how many of the 60 or so inmates Italy might take.

The US has asked the European Union to take the inmates because they cannot go back to their home countries and the EU has left the matter up to individual states.

Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has said he is against the idea.

So far only Portugal has said it will definitely resettle inmates while Spain, France and Luxembourg, along with Italy, have expressed willingness.

Britain, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Poland have said they will not take any.

The Pentagon has released or transferred abroad some 500 detainees since Guantanamo opened almost seven years ago but always on the basis of a military court order.

In one of his first moves after taking office, Obama said he would shut down the camp by the end of the year.

The camp was set up in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in January 2002 to house suspected terrorists following the September 11 attacks in the US by al Qaeda.

It currently holds some 250 detainees, many of whom have been held for years without being charged.

The US has so far cleared about 60 detainees for release but says they cannot be repatriated because of risk of mistreatment or worse.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini recently said Italy could take some of the group, whether by granting political asylum or putting them in Italian jails.

The centre-left opposition has urged the government to provide hospitality for detainees who could be persecuted at home.

CHINESE, NORTH AFRICANS, AFGHANS, IRAQIS 'AT RISK'.

The US has cleared several members of China's ethnic minority Uighurs but it has been unable to repatriate them because of human rights concerns.

China accuses Uighur dissidents of seeking an independent homeland in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

The opposition said other detainees at risk if repatriated included Tunisians, Algerians, Libyans, Yemenites, Iraqis, Afghans and Saudi Arabians.

In June opposition politicians formally asked the centre-right government to explain the alleged role played by the Italian secret service in the 2002-2003 abduction and interrogation of six Tunisians detained in Guantanamo prison.

A Council of Europe (COE) probe last year concluded that 100 people had been kidnapped by the CIA in Europe and rendered to a country where they might be tortured between 2001 and 2005.

The CIA has admitted 'extraordinary rendition' but said the COE's report was ''biased and distorted'' and stressed that the agency had operated lawfully.

In Milan, in the world's first rendition trial, 26 CIA agents and seven Italian spies are accused of the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian cleric who was rendered not to Guantanamo but to Egypt where he says he was tortured.

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