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Italy official says country will not accept Guantanamo detainees

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Speaker for Italy's Chamber of Deputies Gianfranco Fini  said Monday that Italy will not accept detainees released from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Fini made the announcement after a meeting with US House speaker Nancy Pelosi (R-CA) in Rome, and it contradicts earlier statements by Italian defense minister Ignazio La Russa in which La Russa said the country may consider accepting the detainees either under asylum status or within its prison system. Fini said that Italian law particularly forbids the country's prison system from housing foreign inmates absent some formal agreement. Last week, Lithuanian Foreign Affairs Minister Vygaudas Usackas said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would begin talks with the US about the possibility of accepting prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. Earlier this month, the European Parliament voted 542-55, with 51 abstentions, to adopt a resolution calling for member states to accept low-risk prisoners who cannot be returned to their countries of origin for fear of persecution. Details regarding which prisoners may be transferred to which countries are as yet undetermined. Last month, Council of the European Union Secretary-General Javier Solana indicated that several EU member states would likely be willing to accept some former prisoners, though acceptance may be conditioned on the US providing careful background checks to prove that the detainees pose no danger to the host country. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has noted that legal obstacles facing the transfer of the detainees would be different for each host country, and that their acceptance would be determined on a case-by case basis.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on February 17, 2009 (boomark / email).