What is Guantanamo Bay, where is ‘Gitmo’ prison, have prisoners been tortured and is it still open?
The detention centre was opened in 2002 as part of President George W. Bush's 'War On Terror'
PRESIDENT Donald Trump has said he would consider sending suspected New York truck terror attacker Sayfullo Saipov to Guantanamo Bay.
Fifteen years after the detention centre was opened and eight years after then President Barack Obama announced he wanted to shut it down, 'Gitmo' is seemingly finding its way back into America's defence plans.
What is Guantanamo Bay and who is detained there?
Guantanamo Bay detention camp was established by President George W. Bush in 2002 during his War on Terror in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
It is based off Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
At the time of its creation, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said its purpose was to detain and interrogate 'extraordinarily dangerous people' and to prosecute detainees for war crimes.
Critics say the reality is that it's become a place to detain prisoners without trial and the scene of other human rights abuses including torture.
It is believed to be made up of a 612-unit detention centre called Camp Delta and other smaller sites and facilities where detainees are interrogated and the highest-security prisoners are held.
Around 800 men, of 50 different nationalities, have been taken to Guantanamo - with prisoners from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Pakistan making up around 70 per cent of detainees.
Among prisoners kept at Guantanamo have been Khalid Sheik Mohammed, believed to have been No. 3 Al-Qaeda leader before he was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and would-be September 11 hijacker Ramzi Bin Al-Shibh.
Why did Donald Trump call it 'Gitmo'?
Speaking of suspected New York truck terror attacker Sayfullo Saipov, Donald Trump said: "Send him to Gitmo. I would certainly consider that."
'Gitmo' is simply a shortened version of Guantanamo.
Military abbreviations in the US are made up of four-letter codes at Guantanamo's is GTMO.
The term has since entered mainstream reporting and debates and is often used instead of the camp's full name.
Have prisoners been tortured there?
Guantanamo Bay has been accused by a number of respected institutions of carrying out torture on detainees.
The International Committee of the Red Cross inspected the camp in June 2004 and accused the U.S. military of using "humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes and use of forced positions" against inmates.
Amnesty International has said it considers the operations of the camp to be a major breach of human rights.
Several released prisoners have said they were tortured during their detention.
In 2013, more than 100 detainees went on hunger strike as part of protests against conditions in the prison.
It emerged on July 23 2018, that the UK Government was now prepared to handover the remaining two members of the "Beatles" cell of executioners in Syria and Iraq - meaning the terror duo, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, may end up in the notorious camp.
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Why didn't Barack Obama fulfil his promise to close Guantanamo Bay and does Donald Trump want to keep it open?
George W. Bush' successor, Barack Obama, promised to close the camp in 2009, calling it a "sad chapter in American history".
But he faced strong opposition from Congress and succeeded only in reducing the number of inmates from 245 to around 40, as detainees were either freed or transferred to other countries.
Since his election in 2016, Donald Trump has vowed to keep the prison open and use it to detain "bad dudes".
He has also stated he would happily use torture against inmates.
He said: ""I would bring back waterboarding, and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding... Don’t tell me it doesn’t work—torture works... if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing to us. We have to fight fire with fire."