ROME — Italy will not accept any Guantanamo Bay detainees when the U.S. prison shuts down, a close ally of Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Monday after meeting with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Gianfranco Fini, the speaker of Italy's Chamber of Deputies, said he knew of no Italian citizens at Guantanamo. People can be held in Italian prisons only after they are sentenced by the Italian judiciary or countries with which Rome has a bilateral agreement, he said.
Italian reports, citing human rights organizations, say as many as a dozen people who had been residents of Italy but not citizens are being held at Guantanamo. Italian officials have not addressed the issue.
President Barack Obama has ordered the prison in Cuba to be closed within a year and his administration is reviewing the Guantanamo cases to determine whether the suspects remaining there should be tried in U.S. courts or released to other countries.
"I don't think we'll see a situation where the president will be asking countries to accept people," unless it is the inmates' country of origin, said Pelosi.
| Put 'em in Berkeley. Enroll them in classes. You won't be able to tell them apart from the local crazies. Except for the scimitars ... |
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