Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Blair: Guantánamo is an anomaly

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Blair: Guantánamo is an anomaly: "Friday February 17, 2006

Tony Blair today said the US detention camp at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba was an 'anomaly' that would have to be 'dealt with'.

In Berlin to meet the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the prime minister was asked whether he supported a call from his Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, for the centre to be closed.

'I have always said it is an anomaly, and sooner or later has to be dealt with,' the prime minister told a news conference, repeating a comment he made to MPs last November.

Last night, Mr Hain told BBC1's Question Time: 'I would prefer that it [Guantánamo] was not there. I would prefer it was closed, yes.'

Asked whether it was government policy that Guantánamo should be shut down, he replied: 'That's what I think.'

Mr Hain was asked for his reaction to a United Nations report, backed by UN secretary general Kofi Annan, calling for inmates to be tried or released and for the camp's immediate closure. Some aspects of prisoners' treatment, including the force-feeding of hunger strikers, amounted to torture, the report said."