Brussels, 17/12/2008 (Agence Europe) - By not initiating the debate during the plenary session on prisoners held in Guantanamo and CIA secret flights in Europe, the European Parliament (EP) avoids taking its responsibilities, Amnesty International complains. “At a time of concrete developments, it was expected the EP would lead discussion instead of running away from its responsibilities”, Nicolas Berger, Director of the Amnesty International (AI) European Bureau, said on Tuesday 16 December. The NGO has therefore addressed a letter (available at http://www.amnesty-eu-org ) to all leaders of political groups in Parliament so that the latter takes up the debate as a matter of urgency. The press recently revealed that the former Spanish government had authorised the CIA to use its airspace to transfer prisoners to Guantanamo (EUROPE 9798). Last week, the Portuguese foreign minister, Luis Amado, sent a letter to his European opposite numbers calling on the EU to help the US Administration to definitively close the prison by agreeing to take in detainees unable to return to their country of origin. During an EU-US ministerial meeting on justice and home affairs in Washington on 12 December, French Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie said the matter “should be discussed at European level”, while underlining that there were no French detainees in Guantanamo. About 50 prisoners out of the 250 currently held in Guantanamo cannot legally be sent back to their country of origin as they risk severe violation of their fundamental rights there, such as acts of torture of other ill treatment. Such detainees come from China, Libya, Uzbekistan, Russia and Tunisia. (B.C./transl.jl)