GENEVA: A group of UN experts on Monday urged Washington to finally close the Guantanamo Bay site of “unrelenting human rights violations”.

Independent UN rights experts voiced outrage that the military prison in Cuba created after the Sept 2001 attacks to house detainees in the “war on terror” was still operating.

On the 20th anniversary of the first arrivals at the detention centre, they described it as a site of “unparalleled notoriety” and a “stain” on Washington’s stated commitment to the rule of law.

“Twenty years of practising arbitrary detention without trial accompanied by torture or ill-treatment is simply unacceptable for any government, particularly a government which has a stated claim to protecting human rights,” they said in a statement.