Cuba demands US gives back Guantanamo Bay

CUBA has demanded the US return

Guantanamo Bay to the island nation and
denounced the "war on terror" prison,
where six detainees could face the death penalty.

Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque claimed
today that suspects held in the US naval base in the
southeastern tip of Cuba have been subjected to
torture and face unfair legal treatment.

Cuba rejects "the violation of human rights, unjust
incarceration of prisoners held there without charges,
and their appearance in courts without guarantees
and in which they are convicted in advance,''
he told reporters.

He did not directly refer to the case of six detainees facing
charges that carry the death penalty.

"We demand again the closure of the indecent
Guantanamo prison, the return of the territory illegally
occupied to our fatherland,'' Perez Roque said.

The United States, which has occupied Guantanamo
for more than 100 years, signed in 1934 a lease
agreement with the Cuban government that could not
be altered without agreement by both countries.

Since 1960, a year after it came to power, Fidel
Castro's communist government has refused the
annual lease payment of 5000 dollars from
the United States.

The US Defence Department announced Monday
that military prosecutors are seeking the death
penalty against six Al-Qaeda detainees on murder
and conspiracy charges in the September 11,
2001 attacks on the United States.