Candidates differ on Gitmo future

US Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain hold differing views on the future of Guantanamo Bay prison.

The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a US prison operated by Joint Task Force Guantanamo since 2002 in Guantanamo Bay Base, Cuba, which holds detainees labeled by the US as 'enemy combatants'.

Although all three candidates believe that the Guantanamo Bay has to close, they have different point of views about the future of the detainees.

Republican nominee John McCain wants to bring the detainees to prisons inside the US, where their treatment and adjudication can be more closely monitored but contrary to his Democratic opponents, Obama and Clinton, wants to continue the military commissions that have already been set for the roughly 80 detainees against whom the military says it holds enough evidence to prosecute.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama says that if he is elected president, he would stop the military commissions and try the remaining Guantanamo Bay detainees in military courts-martial or in federal courts, which have successfully tried some terrorist cases.

His plan has sparked criticism from those who believe it would lead to the release of dangerous people, since the US military could not gather the same caliber of evidence against the detainees as would be required in a US court.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has said that if elected president; she would ask the Justice Department to evaluate the cases of the detainees and decide whether they should be tried in federal courts or courts-martial.

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