[JURIST] A European Union lawmaker calling for the US to close its detention center at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] suggested Thursday that it should be replaced with an international criminal tribunal to hear the cases of the approximately 450 alleged terror suspects now detained. European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Elmar Brok [official profile] told German TV news program Tagesschau in an interview [text, in German] that he spoke for the majority of European Parliament members in calling for a court similar to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [official website] (ICTY) to bring detainees to trial. The idea had been previously floated by policy experts; read Ken Gude's paper After Guantanamo: A Special Tribunal for International Terror Suspects [PDF], prepared for the Center for American Progress in April 2006.

President Bush reiterated Wednesday that he would like to close Guantanamo Bay [transcript], but some detainees are too dangerous to release. Three detainees committed suicide [JURIST report] last Saturday, prompting renewed calls by the UN [JURIST report] and international rights groups to shut down the facility. Deutsche Welle has more.