Barack Obama: Administration Drafts Order to Close Guantanamo Camp Within Year

The Obama administration is circulating a draft executive order that calls for closing the controversial US military prison at Guantanamo Bay within a year, it emerged today.

The draft order, obtained by the Associated Press, would also declare a halt to all trials currently under way at the facility, where roughly 245 detainees are being held. Most have not been charged. The Bush administration created the camp after the September 11 2001 attacks.

The draft order would start the process of shutting down a facility that has been strongly criticized by human rights groups and European governments.

News of the draft order came as President Barack Obama ordered a suspension of the controversial Guantanamo Bay military tribunals, in one of his first actions after being sworn in yesterday.

Within hours of taking office Obama's administration filed a motion to halt the war crimes trials for 120 days, until it completes a review of the much-criticized system for trying suspected terrorists.

The move, which will suspend cases against 21 men, was made at the direction of Obama and Robert Gates, George Bush's defence secretary, who has kept his job in the new administration.

The first military judge to consider the motion, US Army Colonel Patrick Parrish, granted the request to suspend the trial of Omar Khadr, a Canadian who is accused of killing an American soldier with a grenade in Afghanistan in 2002. Later another military judge will consider suspending the case of five men charged with plotting the 9/11 attacks.

The halt to the tribunals was sought "in the interests of justice", the official request to the judges said.

Moazzam Begg, the former British detainee at Guantanamo Bay, urged Obama to go further. "There is no clear statement about this being stopped and the whole process being recognized as illegal," he said.

"For myself and other former detainees, until we see something tangible happening we are going to reserve judgment. That is because we have been here before ? Bush has stated he wanted Guant?namo closed."

Human rights groups who were at Guantanamo Bay to observe this week's session of the tribunals welcomed the move.

"It's a great first step but it is only a first step," said Gabor Rona, the international director of Human Rights First. "It will permit the newly inaugurated president and his administration to undertake a thorough review of both the pending cases and the military commissions process generally.

"The suspension of military commissions so soon after President Obama took office is an indication of the sense of urgency he feels about reversing the destructive course that the previous administration was taking in fighting terrorism."

Jamil Dakwar, director of the human rights program at the American Civil Liberties Union, said it was a positive step but noted, "The president's order leaves open the option of this discredited system remaining in existence."

Clive Stafford Smith, a human rights lawyer who has represented Guantanamo suspects, said, "It's great isn't it? There is no doubt it will stop the practices at Guantanamo. After all, Obama is now the commander-in-chief."

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Stafford Smith said, "It's going to take some work but what he [Obama] is looking at, I think, here is a very clear-cut distinction between this administration and the last."

Relatives of victims of the 9/11 attacks, who were also at the base to observe the hearings, have said they oppose any further delay in the trials of the men charged in the case.

The requested suspension came on the day a military judge adjourned the war crimes court just before Obama was sworn in by noting that the future of the commissions was in doubt.

Obama had previously pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and had been expected to suspend the widely criticized tribunals.

The president's nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, has said the military commissions lack sufficient legal protections for defendants and that they could be tried in the US.