Biden: US should close Guantanamo Bay prison News
Biden: US should close Guantanamo Bay prison

[JURIST] US Senator Joseph Biden [official website] said Sunday on ABC-TV's This Week that the US should begin efforts to close down the military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay. Biden, head Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee [official website], also suggested that an independent commission should review the prison and make recommendations, saying prisoners the US does not need to keep should be released. He called Guantanamo "the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world." Biden's comments come in the wake of a Pentagon report released Friday [JURIST report] detailing how US guards desecrated the Koran and an Amnesty International report last month [JURIST report] calling the prison camp the "gulag of our time." Senator Arlen Specter [official website], chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website], will hold hearings later this month [JURIST report] to discuss the ongoing reports of prisoner abuse. AP has more.