By Country / Kosovo
U.S. Military Denies Secret Kosovo Detention Center
November 26, 2005
26 November 2005 -- The U.S. military in Kosovo said today that it does not have a secret detention facility at its military base in Kosovo.
Major Michael Wunn, a spokesman for the U.S. military contingent in Kosovo, said no secret detention facilities are located at Camp Bondsteel in eastern Kosovo.
But Wunn said that it is "common knowledge" that a joint detention facility center of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission (KFOR) is located there.
Wunn said that currently nobody is detained in the facility, which is operated by U.S. Military Police.
Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Alvaro Gil-Robles said on 25 November that the U.S. military ran a Guantanamo-type detention center in Kosovo, as an investigation by the organization into alleged CIA-run secret prisons gathered pace.
Gil-Robles said he had been "shocked" by conditions at the center inside a U.S. military base, which he witnessed in 2002.
(AFP)