US authorities shut down Guantanamo's top secret unit

A once-secret unit within the Guantanamo Bay detention center that had fallen into disrepair has been closed and the prisoners moved to another facility on the American base in Cuba, the US military said, Report informs referring to the Associated Press.

The prisoners at Camp 7 were transferred to a facility adjacent to where the other detainees on the base are held as part of what US Southern Command said in a statement was an effort to “increase operational efficiency and effectiveness.”

Southern Command said the Camp 7 prisoners were moved to Camp 5 “safely and without incident,” but did not say when the transfer occurred. Camp 5, which was largely empty, is next to Camp 6, where the other detainees are held.

Camp 7 opened in December 2006 for prisoners previously held in a network of clandestine CIA detention facilities, often referred to as “black sites,” where they were subjected to brutal interrogation techniques. The military ran it under an agreement with CIA, and Southern Command said intelligence agencies were involved with the transfer.

The military long refused to even acknowledge the location of Camp 7 on the base and has never allowed journalists to see the inside of the facility.

President Joe Biden has said he intends to close Guantanamo, but that would require approval from Congress to move some prisoners to the US for trial or imprisonment.