Brussels, 11/01/2006 (Agence Europe) - In an open letter addressed to Chancellor Schüssel on Tuesday, Amnesty International calls on the Austrian EU Presidency to follow in the footsteps of Chancellor Angela Merkel and call for the illegal detention centre in Guantanamo to be closed. Angela Merkel said the Guantanamo centre in Cuba should not be allowed to remain indefinitely and that she would bring the question up with President Bush on Thursday during her first visit to Washington as leader of the German government. There are currently about 500 prisoners in the Guantanamo detention centre opened in January 2002, most of whom were captured in Afghanistan in autumn 2001. Most of them are still being detained without charge. “Four years are four years too many in which a shameful illegal black hole has been tolerated by the EU”, Dick Oosting, Director of the Amnesty International European Office said with indignation. Further evidence was included in Amnesty International's letter confirming allegations that torture had been used on prisoners in Guantanamo. “We are hearing of abuses similar to those of Abu Ghraib and yet Guantanamo is not being condemned in the same way”, Dick Oosting pointed out.