UN Torture Envoy Confident of Visit to Guantanamo

[Judi Lynn]

UN Torture Envoy Confident of Visit to Guantanamo
Mon Apr 4, 2005 01:45 PM ET


GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. investigator into torture said on Monday he was confident the United States would grant his request to visit its base at Guantanamo Bay, where rights activists say detainees face inhumane treatment.
Some nine months after the request was made, Austrian law professor Manfred Nowak said there were signs the U.S. would agree to let him and other U.N. human rights envoys travel to the naval base in Cuba.

"I should say that I am fairly confident that at least to Guantanamo Bay a visit can still be carried out this year, but there is no invitation yet," he said in a brief statement following a meeting with U.S. officials.

The envoys, including the U.N.'s investigator into arbitrary detention, asked last June to inspect conditions in Guantanamo and prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. forces hold suspected militants.

But a U.S. official in Geneva, where the U.N. Commission on Human Rights is holding its annual session, merely confirmed a meeting had taken place with the envoys and that Washington would consider their request.
(snip/...)

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8080843

[gratuitous]

1. Heck, it's only been nine months since he made his request

What do you suppose the envoy's going to find after the caretakers have had nine months to clean up?