US: A draft United Nations (UN) report on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay concludes that the US treatment of them violates their right to physical and mental health - and, in some cases, constitutes torture.
The report also urges the United States to close the military prison in Cuba and bring the captives to trial on US territory, charging that Washington's justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law.
The report, compiled by five special envoys to the UN who interviewed US officials, former prisoners, and detainees' lawyers and families, is the product of a year-and-a-half investigation ordered by the UN Commission on Human Rights.
The team did not have access to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
The findings of the report - notably that the violent force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence used in transporting prisoners, and combinations of interrogation techniques "must be assessed as amounting to torture" - are likely to stoke criticism of the detention facility.
More than 500 people captured abroad since 2002 as "enemy combatants" are detained at Guantanamo.
"We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the US government," said Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, one of the envoys.
"There are no conclusions that are easily drawn.
"But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture," he said.
The draft report has not been officially released. Comments and clarifications from the US government are being incorporated.
In November, the Bush administration offered the UN team the same tour of the detention facility as that given to journalists and members of Congress.
However, it refused to allow the envoys access to prisoners. Because of that, the UN group declined the visit.
The International Red Cross is the only party allowed by the US government to have access to prisoners and monitor their physical and mental health.
That organisation, however, is forbidden from making its findings public.
Mr Nowak said he did not expect major changes to the report's conclusions and recommendations as a result of the US government's response.
The report is not legally binding, but human rights and legal advocates said they hoped it would add weight to similar findings by rights-monitoring groups and the European Parliament.
"I think the effect of this will be to revive concern about the government's mistreatment of detainees, and to get people to take another look at the legal basis," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
The report focuses on the US government's legal basis for detention of prisoners as described in a formal response to the UN inquiry.
"The law of war allows the United States - and any other country engaged in combat - to hold enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities.
"Detention is not an act of punishment, but of security and military necessity. It serves the purpose of preventing combatants from continuing to take up arms against the United States," it said.
But the UN team concluded there had been insufficient due process to determine whether the more than 750 people detained at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002 were "enemy combatants".
They determined the primary purpose of their confinement was for interrogation, not to prevent them from taking up arms.
The US has released or transferred more than 260 detainees from Guantanamo Bay.
The team also rejected the premise that "the war on terrorism" constituted an armed conflict for the purposes of international humanitarian law.
The five UN envoys are independent experts appointed by the UN Commission on Human Rights to examine arbitrary detention, torture, the independence of judges and lawyers, freedom of religion and the right to physical and mental health.