MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/. Russia hopes that the United States will keep its promise and shut down the extraterritorial prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters at a press briefing on Friday.
"We hope that the new US administration will keep Washington’s promise and close the Guantanamo prison without delay, and provide its inmates with access to fair, independent and unbiased administration of justice," she stated.
"We [Russia] hope that the United States will conduct a necessary investigation and bring all the perpetrators, including those in the highest government positions, to justice for authorizing, conniving and engaging in secret detentions, arbitrary arrests of civilians, torture, abuse and the use of harsh interrogation tactics, even under the pretext of combating terrorism," she elaborated.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp or GITMO is an extraterritorial United States military prison located within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba, leased by the Americans since 1903. In the 1990s, a filtration and refugee processing center was established there for asylum-seekers from Cuba and Haiti trying to migrate to the United States. The decision on establishing this specially-designated prison at the naval base was made by the Pentagon as part of the ‘war on terror’ crusade by then US President George W. Bush. Between November 2001 and March 2002, the Bush administration issued a series of decrees on establishing a prison for especially dangerous criminals, determining their status and creating special judicial bodies - military commissions under the US Department of Defense. The temporary detention camp at Guantanamo was later converted into a full-fledged penitentiary facility.