Cuba Demands US Return Guantanamo Bay
Campaign News | Thursday, 14 February 2008
Wednesday, the Cuban government demanded that the United States close the "indecent Guantanamo prison" and return the territory illegally occupied to its fatherland.
Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque alleged that terror suspects being held in the US naval base in the southeastern tip of Cuba have been subjected to inhuman torture and face unfair legal treatment.
The Cuban demand comes after the US Defense Department announced Monday that military prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against six Al-Qaida detainees on murder and conspiracy charges in the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
The United States signed a lease agreement with the Cuban government in 1934 that cannot be altered without consent of both countries. Fidel Castro's communist government has not accepted the annual lease payment of $5,000 from the United States since 1960, a year after it came to power.
Roque told reporters that Cuba rejects "the violation of human rights, unjust incarceration of prisoners held there without charges, and their appearance in courts without guarantees and in which they are convicted in advance."
http://www.rttnews.com/FOREX/politicalnews.asp?date=02/14/2008&item=10
