Guantanamo inmates may go to US prison

Officials are reportedly considering a plan to move Guantanamo detainees to a special US prison camp that would also contain courtrooms and long-term living quarters.

The Washington Post reported that the facility would be jointly run by the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, with each responsible for different inmates.

The site would include courtrooms for federal criminal trials and military commissions to prosecute terror suspects; a maximum security lockdown for prisoners held in indefinite detention and those serving out their terms; and living quarters for detainees cleared for release but who have no country willing to accept them, the Post reported.

An unnamed government official told the newspaper that the site is one idea being considered by a task force looking into US detention policy, but has not yet reached the level of recommendation.

Sites under consideration include the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas military prison, and a maximum-security prison in Michigan currently scheduled to be closed, according to The Post.

President Barack Obama is facing mounting challenges over how and where to try or release detainees as he seeks to meet his January deadline to close Guantanamo, the US naval base in southeastern Cuba where 229 terror suspects are still held.

Since January, 11 detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo, including four to their home countries, and another was flown to New York, where he faces criminal charges in US federal court.

The proposal is already generating opposition in the US.

'Closing Guantanamo will be an empty gesture if we just reopen it on shore under a different name,' said Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Any arrangement 'that allows indefinite detention without charge or trial will leave in place the problems that led President Obama to order the prison closed in the first place,' he said in a statement.