UN rights body tells US to shut 'secret' jails

The UN Human Rights Committee told Washington today it should immediately shut all "secret detention" facilities and give the…

The UN Human Rights Committee told Washington today it should immediately shut all "secret detention" facilities and give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to anybody held in armed conflict.

In its findings on US observance of the United Nation's main political rights' convention, the committee said it had "credible and uncontested" information that the United States had detained people "secretly and in secret places for months and years".

It said: "The state party (United States) should immediately abolish all secret detention and secret detention facilities."