MIAMI, Feb 1 (AFP) - Officials will have an extra month to investigate whether some of 550 suspects held without charges at a US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba were tortured, the US military announced Tuesday.
"The investigating officer requested the 28-day extension due to the geographic dispersion of potential witnesses," said general Bantz Craddock, commander of the Southern Command, in a statement.
"These witnesses are located from Maine to California nationally and from Iraq to Korea, internationally.
"It is not uncommon with investigations of this complexity to have extensions requested and granted. Additional extensions cannot be ruled out," Craddock's statement said.
The US Southern Command is in charge of military operations in the Caribbean, Central and South America.
The command initiated its investigation in January after the publication of e-mails from FBI agents to their superiors, in which they recalled incidents of physical abuse at the US navy base in Guantanamo, Cuba, where the Pentagon has confined men as enemy combatants, most of whom were picked up on battlefields in Afghanistan.
In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal last year, Steven McGraw, a senior FBI official, sent an e-mail to all special agents assigned to Guantanamo and asked them to report whether they had observed "aggressive treatment, interrogations or interview techniques on (Guantanamo) detainees, which was not consistent with Bureau interview policy/guidelines."
Of 530 FBI employees who served at Guantanamo in some capacity, 26 replied they observed some form of mistreatment although not by FBI personnel.
02/01/2005 21:37 GMT - AFP