US to mull lifetime detentions

The Bush administration is preparing plans for possible lifetime detention of suspected terrorists, including hundreds whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts, The Washington Post reported yesterday.

Citing intelligence, defence and diplomatic officials, the newspaper said the Pentagon and the CIA had asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for those it would not set free or turn over to courts at home or abroad.

As part of a solution, the Defence Department, which holds 500 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, plans to ask the US Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, defence officials told the newspaper.

The new prison, dubbed Camp 6, would allow inmates more comfort and freedom than they have now, and would be designed for prisoners the government believes have no more intelligence to share, The Post said.

"It would be modelled on a US prison and would allow socialising among inmates," the paper said.

"Since global war on terror is a long-term effort, it makes sense for us to be looking at solutions for long-term problems," Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, was quoted as saying. "This has been evolutionary, but we are at a point in time where we have to say, 'How do you deal with them in the long term?'"

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt Col. Ellen Krenke of the Air Force, had no information on the reported plan.

The Post said the outcome of a review under way would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations.

One proposal would transfer large numbers of Afghan, Saudi and Yemeni detainees from the US military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention centre into new US-built prisons in their home countries, it said.

The prisons would be operated by those countries, but the State Department, where this idea originated, would ask them to abide by recognised human rights standards and would monitor compliance, a senior administration official was quoted as saying.