Washington - The United States on Thursday angrily rejected calls by United Nations human rights monitors to close the Guantanamo "war on terror" detention camp, calling their report "a discredit" to the world body.
But UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that "sooner or later" the controversial camp will have to be shut down - stepping up pressure on the US administration.
European lawmakers also urged Washington to close the camp in the wake of the UN rights monitors' report, and a senior British cabinet member also said the controversial detention centre should now be shuttered.
The report by five independent experts acting as monitors for the UN Human Rights Commission said the US government should close Guantanamo "without further delay".
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The 54-page document strongly condemned the treatment of the 500 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base in Cuba.
It pointed to cases of "excessive violence" during transportation of detainees and force feeding of hunger strikers. These "must be assessed as amounting to torture", the report said.
The investigators said the US military acted as judge, prosecutor and defence in the special trials at the base.
They said the US authorities should "expeditiously bring all Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial" under international law, "or release them without further delay".
The White House quickly hit back at the investigators, criticising them for writing the report without having been to Guantanamo.
The experts cancelled a planned visit to the camp last year because the United States refused to give them free access to all prisoners.
They based their report on US government answers to a questionnaire, plus interviews with former inmates in Britain, France and Spain, and lawyers for some detainees.
"The United Nations should be making serious investigations across the world, and there are many instances in which they do when it comes to human rights.
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