The UN human rights agency has said the US should focus on closing its prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The International Committee of the Red Cross told the Pentagon as early as 2002 that detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison complained of US officials mishandling the Quran, Red Cross and Pentagon officials have said.

Three years after the US opened its prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, 65 detainees have been handed over to their home countries but none has been convicted of any crime.

A lawyer for a Syrian-American airman accused of spying while working as a translator in Guantanamo, Cuba, has asked a military court to dismiss the case because he lacks access to important documents he needs to defend his client.

A US military translator at the US base in Guantanamo, Cuba, arrested 23 July, does not face the possibility of the death penalty, the Air Force said in a statement.