THE US/RUSSIA: The mothers of eight Russians held with other prisoners from Afghanistan at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay have begged Washington not to extradite their sons to answer terror charges in Russia, fearing that conditions in their jails and judicial system are even worse than those at Camp Delta.
"In Guantanamo they treat him humanely, and the conditions are fine," Ms Amina Khasanova, mother of Andrei Bakhitov, told the newspaper Gazeta. "I am terribly scared for my son in a Russian prison or court system."
She said her son wrote to her that conditions were so good in Camp Delta in Cuba that "there is no health resort in Russia that can compare".
Camp Delta has been criticised by human rights groups, and there have been 28 suicide attempts among the 612 prisoners at the facility.
But Russian jails, where inmates may be held 20 to a cell, tuberculosis is rampant and hygiene minimal, have been condemned as "deadly". - )