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Euro leader in candle protest over Guantanamo prisoners
Strasbourg, Oct 22: Leading members of the European Parliament demanded today that the EU`s Italian presidency raise the case of 26 Europeans held at Guantanamo Bay with the United States.
Strasbourg, Oct 22: Leading members of the European Parliament demanded today that the EU's Italian presidency raise the case of 26 Europeans held at Guantanamo Bay with the United States.
The head of the Parliament's Liberal grouping, Graham Watson, lit 26 candles as he addressed Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the assembly in Strasbourg.
The candles were "a symbol that these detainees be not forgotten", the British politician said. "Indeed I hope that these 26 and all 600 detainees will have their case raised," he added, before making an arch allusion to legal travails of the billionaire Italian leader.
"The president in office complains that he is a victim of injustice before the law himself, and so he should be particularly concerned about this very real injustice on a far greater scale," he said.
The 650-odd detainees at the US military base on Cuba, who were mostly rounded up in Afghanistan, are being held without trial. US President George W. Bush, during a visit to Australia this week, denied that the military had tortured suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants at the base. The leader of the European Parliament's biggest grouping, the European People's Party, denounced the "terribly unjust" treatment of the prisoners.
Bureau Report
The candles were "a symbol that these detainees be not forgotten", the British politician said. "Indeed I hope that these 26 and all 600 detainees will have their case raised," he added, before making an arch allusion to legal travails of the billionaire Italian leader.
"The president in office complains that he is a victim of injustice before the law himself, and so he should be particularly concerned about this very real injustice on a far greater scale," he said.
The 650-odd detainees at the US military base on Cuba, who were mostly rounded up in Afghanistan, are being held without trial. US President George W. Bush, during a visit to Australia this week, denied that the military had tortured suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants at the base. The leader of the European Parliament's biggest grouping, the European People's Party, denounced the "terribly unjust" treatment of the prisoners.
Bureau Report