Post date: May 10, 2013 7:43:16 PM
Former prosecutor delivers more than 188,000 petition signatures calling for the closure of the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention center.
WASHINGTON, D.C., UNTIED STATES (MAY 10, 2013) (REUTERS) - Colonel Morris Davis, who served as the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay for two years, appeared on Capitol Hill on Friday (May 10) demanding the closure of the controversial detention facility.
Davis delivered more than 188,000 petition signatures calling for President Barack Obama to close down Guantanamo and grant the detainees due process.Obama pledged to close the prison within a year after first taking office in January 2009 but his efforts ran aground, partly because of congressional opposition, from both Republicans and some in his own Democratic Party, to transferring prisoners to the United States.
"The administration has got to make a decision on which cases they want to prosecute and they should be prosecuted in federal court where its been fast efficient, there have been no acquittal I am aware of in a terrorism related case," Morris told lawmakers on Friday.
Most of the prisoners have been kept in detention without trial or charge since the prison was set up in 2002 to hold foreign terrorism suspects.
Inmates began a hunger strike in February that has swelled to some 100 prisoners and has led to force-feeding of 23 of the prisoners.
The Guantanamo camp was opened by President George W. Bush, to hold foreign terrorism suspects captured overseas after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.