GENEVA, May 19 (Xinhua) -- A UN anti-torture panel Friday urged the United States to close any secret prisons abroad, including the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

    The United States should "ensure that no one is detained in any secret detention facility under its de facto effective control" and "investigate and disclose the existence of any such facilities," said the UN Committee Against Torture.

    Detaining persons in such conditions violated the international law, said the committee.

    It also urged President George W. Bush's administration to take firm measures to get rid of any form of torture.

    The United States is currently holding hundreds of terrorism suspects at its prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, most of whom were arrested since a massive "war against terror" after the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. soil in 2001.

    Washington refused any comments on its secret prisons abroad, and the group it sent to Geneva for the panel's hearing insisted that there had been "few actual cases of abuse." Enditem

    GENEVA, May 19 (Xinhua) -- A UN anti-torture panel Friday urged the United States to close any secret prisons abroad, including the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

    The United States should "ensure that no one is detained in any secret detention facility under its de facto effective control" and "investigate and disclose the existence of any such facilities," said the UN Committee Against Torture.

    Detaining persons in such conditions violated the international law, said the committee.

    It also urged President George W. Bush's administration to take firm measures to get rid of any form of torture.

    The United States is currently holding hundreds of terrorism suspects at its prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, most of whom were arrested since a massive "war against terror" after the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. soil in 2001.

    Washington refused any comments on its secret prisons abroad, and the group it sent to Geneva for the panel's hearing insisted that there had been "few actual cases of abuse." Enditem