Posted by Vilnius (RIA Novosti) — Lithuania will not accept prisoners from Guantanamo Bay until allegations that it was involved in hosting secret CIA jails are disproven, the Baltic state’s president said on Thursday (14/10/2009).
Dalia Grybauskaite said “no prisoner [from Guantanamo Bay] will be hosted in the country,” until the suspicions are laid to rest.
Otherwise, she said, “this would lead to heightened and additional risks for Lithuania on the international scene.”
Earlier, in September, the country’s foreign minister Vygaudas Usackas said Lithuania was in talks with the United States over accepting some prisoners from the controversial detention center at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.
In mid-August, the U.S. television network ABC said Lithuanian officials had provided the U.S. with a building outside the capital, Vilnius, allegedly intended for holding terrorist suspects. The Lithuanian authorities denied the allegations.
The United States opened a detention center at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba in 2002. Soon after taking office in January of this year, President Barack Obama said the jail would be closed within a year. However, finding countries willing to take the prisoners has proven difficult.
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