Washington: British Defence Minister, John Reid has said that Geneva Conventions should be updated and extended to cover the treatment of prisoners suspected of terrorism.
Speaking at a press conference with US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday, Reid would not say whether the proposal was intended to end the widely criticised twilight status of war-on-terror detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Instead, he said the Geneva Convention "did not envisage unconstrained terrorism potentially allied to the unconstrained destructive capacity of weapons of mass destruction."
"It dealt only with state actors. It did not envisage non-state actors with the international reach and destructive capability of states," he added.
"And therefore, what I have said is that the Geneva Convention or other international law should be extended and strengthened," Reid said.
The United States contends that non-US prisoners captured in its war on terrorism are illegal enemy combatants who are not protected by the Geneva conventions.
It currently holds 490 prisoners at Guantanamo and an unknown number of others at secret detention centers around the world where they are beyond the reach of US law.
It has also pressed ahead with trials by special military commissions of a handful of prisoners at Guantanamo despite challenges before the Supreme Court questioning the legality of the process.
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