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Chavez Offers to Shelter Inmates
President Hugo Chavez has expressed Venezuela's readiness to accept prisoners held at the Guantanamo bay detention center in Cuba.
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez said the Gitmo detainees are "human beings".
The Venezuelan leader said on Wednesday that Caracas "would have no problems in receiving" the detainees -- whom the US calls terror suspects -- from the notorious US prison.
"We would have no problems in taking human beings," Chavez told Al-Jazeera at a summit of Latin American and Arab countries in the Qatari capital of Doha.
US President Barack Obama has ordered the closure of the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison camp within one year.
Hundreds of prisoners are still in US custody, most of them without a charge.
Chavez expressed hope that Obama would release all Guantanamo prisoners and "return Guantanamo Bay to Cuba and do away with that miserable prison".
The Venezuelan leader, meanwhile, said he was hopeful that Obama would yield to the requests of his people and strive to become the first "democratic" US president but added, "I don't have much hope."
Presidents Chavez and Obama are to attend a summit of the Americas set to be held in Trinidad and Tobago later this month.
RB/HGH/AA