New 37 mn Guantanamo prison opens

The 178-cell prison, constructed beside another maximum-security prison built in 2004, will allow the base to phase out an older facility, Durand said.

UN human rights investigators and foreign governments have called on the United States to close the entire detention centre because of widespread allegations of abuse of detainees by guards. The United States labels Guantanamo detainees 8220;enemy combatants,8221; which accords them fewer rights than other prisoners.

About 430 men are currently held at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban, including about 100 who have been cleared for release and are awaiting transfer to another country. Fewer than a dozen inmates have been charged with crimes.

The new prison was originally designed as a medium-security facility. But the military made several modifications, citing concerns raised by three suicides in June and a clash in May between guards and detainees armed with makeshift weapons.

It is now one of two facilities reserved for prisoners who are least compliant8212; an assessment the military says it bases on detainees8217; adherence to base rules rather than their cooperation with interrogators.

Detainees will be confined in individual cells with long, narrow windows overlooking areas with metal tables and stools that were meant to be shared spaces but will now be off-limits.

An open-air recreation area has been divided into smaller spaces, which will hold only one detainee at a time. Shower doors were redesigned to allow guards to shackle prisoners8217; hands and feet before they leave the stalls, and fencing was installed on second-tier catwalks to prevent detainees from jumping over the sides.

US Navy Cmdr Kris Winter said the modifications will help make guards safer. In the last year and a half, the military has recorded more than 430 incidents in which detainees have thrown 8220;cocktails8221; of bodily excretions at guards, as well as 225 physical assaults.

Guantanamo officials said the inability of the detainees to communicate with one another will also improve safety. Officials have said the May 18 ambush inside another facility on the base resulted from a plot hatched by detainees as word spread that guards were searching cells for contraband medication following two suicide attempts.

A defence attorney said the melee was sparked when guards tried to search prisoners8217; Qurans.

Navy Rear Adm Harry Harris, commander of the jail, has also described June 10 suicides at a minimum-security facility at the base as a coordinated protest. Lawyers and human rights activists called the suicides an act of desperation.