NEW YORK, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. government should charge or release the remaining detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Human Rights Watch said Sunday.
"Prisoners implicated in crimes should be charged and brought to trial before federal courts, and the remainder should be sent home or resettled in other countries," said Andrea Prasow, senior counter-terrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch.
Monday marks the prison's eighth anniversary and most of the nearly 200 men still held there have yet to be charged with a crime, Prasow said in a statement released Sunday.
The Obama administration has said it remains committed to closing the prison and late last year announced plans to transfer some detainees to a prison in Illinois.
Bringing the detainees to Illinois without charging them, however, would "merely be bringing Guantanamo's fundamental failing to the U.S. mainland," Prasow said.
U.S. plans to return Yemeni detainees to their country were tabled after extremists in Yemen were linked to the Dec. 25 attempted bombing of a jet near Detroit. The U.S. government should repatriate the Yemeni detainees, resettle them in other countries or charge them, Prasow said.
