HispanicBusiness

The United States is breaking key human rights principles by not shutting down Guantanamo prison, U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said Monday, reminding President Obama that he had promised to close it by January 2010.

The U.S. has been holding several of the detainees in Guantanamo without trial for a decade, since the camp for terror suspects was opened on Jan. 11, 2002, on a naval base in Cuba.

"Where credible evidence exists against Guantanamo detainees, they should be charged and prosecuted. Otherwise, they must be released," the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said.

Pillay also charged that a new U.S. defense act codifies Washington's practice of indefinite detention without trial.

"This piece of legislation contravenes some of the most fundamental tenets of justice and human rights, namely the right to a fair trial and the right not to be arbitrarily detained," she said about the act that Obama signed into law last month.