Obama officially orders Gitmo closure, No Mention if prisoners will be moved to another prison

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:58:05 GMT

US President Barack Obama has signed an official order for the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to be closed within the next year.

The newly-inaugurated US president inked three new executive orders earlier on Thursday, one of which requires that the infamous Cuba-based prison be shut down.

The move comes on the second full day of Obama serving in the White House and on the heels of his promise to take a "practical, pragmatic approach to foreign policy."

The orders will also shut down CIA detention centers worldwide as well as establish an interagency task force and a procedure to decide on how to go forward with the detainees.

All US interrogators will also be required to adhere to the rules set forth by the Army Field Manual.

Obama has also pledged to work toward strengthening relations with Muslim nations, many of which have been accused by his predecessor George W. Bush of harboring terrorists.

Under the banner of the war on terror, Bush set up the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in a US naval base in Cuba shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The Bush administration branded the inmates as 'enemy combatant', a title which his administration contended that places them outside the status of prisoners of war and out of the bounds of the protection of the Geneva Conventions.

The detention center currently holds, on terrorism charges, some 250 inmates who have reportedly undergone systematic torture.

Obama had vowed to shut down the facility, describing it as a "sad chapter in American history".

"Under my administration we will not torture," the president of 'change' has said.

It is yet unclear where the Guantanamo inmates will be housed. Only a handful of countries have expressed indecisive readiness to accept the prisoners. Gitmo full article