By Daisy Ayliffe - 20th June 2006
Guantanamo bay should be shut down, president George Bush told EU leaders in Vienna.
Speaking at the EU-US summit on Wednesday, Bush told reporters he would like to see the detention centre closed.
“I would like to end Guantanamo. I would like it to be over with,” he told a press conference.
“We want to send them back to their home countries. There ought to be a way forward in the court of law and I am waiting for the Supreme Court in the USA to decide on a proper venue.”
“But these people are terrorists,” he warned. “They still want to strike and they still want to harm. Some need to be tried in US courts – they are cold blooded killers.”
The EU used the Vienna gathering to heap the pressure on Washington to shut down the controversial detention centre.
The prison at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay holds about 460 foreigners captured during the war to oust al Qaeda from Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.
Detainees are held indefinitely without trial or the right to family visits.
“For the EU September 11 was a moment. For us it was a change of thinking. I bowed to the people of America and I am not going to forget September 11,” Bush declared in Vienna.
The recent suicide of three detainees and US comments that the dead men had engaged in a "public relations" stunt provoked renewed calls for the closure of the facility.
“We risk losing our souls," European commission president Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters ahead of the summit.
"We are committed to the fight against terrorism. But if we suppress civil rights and civil liberties because we are fighting terrorists, that would be a victory for the terrorists."
The US insists it is listening to European concerns.
“I understand the concerns of EU leaders about what Guantanamo says and I share their desire to end it,” the US president hit back.
“But told them we will not let people out who will do harm.”
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