U.N. urges nations to accept Guantanamo detainees

VIENNA (Reuters) - More countries should offer to take in Guantanamo prisoners to help U.S. President-elect Barack Obama close the detention camp for terrorism suspects, the U.N.'s torture investigator said on Monday.

About 255 men are still held at the U.S.-run naval base in Cuba, a symbol of aggressive interrogation methods that exposed the United States to allegations of torture.

Washington has cleared 50 of the detainees for release but cannot return them to home countries due to the risk they would be tortured or persecuted there. Around 500 others have been freed or transferred to other governments since 2002.

Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur for the U.N. Human Rights Council, said more countries that had criticized U.S. treatment of Guantanamo detainees should accept some prisoners so Obama could fulfill a campaign pledge to shut down the prison camp.

He told Austrian state radio that most of the inmates in Guantanamo were there only because they were "in the wrong place at the wrong time" and had nothing to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Nowak, an Austrian, said he understood the widespread unwillingness of European countries to take in Guantanamo detainees since for years the United States had branded them as some of "the most dangerous criminals ever."

But he said a closer look at the prisoners would show that many of them were innocent and not dangerous. Most could be legally eligible for restitution payments, Nowak added.

Britain said last week the United States would need help from allies to close down the Guantanamo Bay prison camp but refused to say if it would agree to resettle inmates with no links to Britain.

Portugal wrote to its European Union partners in December urging them to resettle Guantanamo detainees.

(Writing by Mark Heinrich; Editing by Charles Dick)