Camp X-Ray to get new prison

Camp X-Ray has no running water and toilets

Work is under way at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to build a new prison for Taleban and al-Qaeda suspects being held in American military custody.

They're going to have running water, they're going to have a toilet... and they're going to have their own sink where they can wash up

Camp commander Lieutenant Colonel Bill Cline

When the work is complete the detainees will have running water and toilets - facilities they lack at the moment.

About 300 detainees are being held in wire cages at Camp X-Ray - some of them have been there since January when the camp first opened.

Correspondents say that the more permanent nature of the new jail suggests that at least some of the detainees may be held there for a long time.

Harsh conditions

The detainees are currently held in individual pens built from chain link fencing, roofed over, but with no walls to protect against the elements and no privacy at all.

The inmates went on hunger strike in protest of their treatment in February

The prisoners sleep on foam pads on the concrete floor. They have no running water, and no lavatories other than buckets or portable non-flush toilets in their cells.

The guards have to take water to the cells and empty the buckets.

"They've got a little better structure, they're going to have running water, they're going to have a toilet, which is going to be a great asset to me, and they're going to have their own sink where they can wash up," camp commander said.

"So it's going to alleviate a whole lot of problems that I've got right now."

The new cells will be even smaller than the pens they are kept in now, and prisoners are unlikely to get the communal facilities that they have been demanding, such as the chance to eat or exercise together.

International pressure

Most of the captives have been held for several months, and their treatment has provoked international criticism and accusations of human rights abuses.

The United States says they are being treated humanely.

There have also been reports that some detainees could be tried by US military tribunals without specific evidence that they have been engaged in war crimes.

New rules would allow prisoners to be charged even when there are no witnesses or documents indicating they personally violated the laws of war, according to a report in the New York Times.

The plan follows a failure by US interrogators to obtain information from the captives, as none of them have yet admitted to any atrocity, the newspaper quoted an American official as saying.