... and he WILL keep Guantanamo Bay camp open

DONALD Trump was accused of giving terror groups a moral victory yesterday after he signed an order to keep the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay open.

The site in Cuba, where terrorism suspects can be held indefinitely without trial, was set up during the ‘war on terror’ by US President George W Bush.

While he later realised it provided a powerful recruitment tool for terror groups, both Mr Bush and Barack Obama were blocked from closing it by Congress amid concerns over the fate of hardcore prisoners deemed too risky to release.

In a reversal of that policy, Mr Trump announced in his televised State of the Union speech that he had ordered Guantanamo Bay to be kept open.

Mr Trump made it clear during his election campaign that he wanted to ‘load it up with some bad dudes’. Although he has yet to send any new detainees there, in his speech last night he said: ‘Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we have no choice but to annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them.’

To Republican cheers, he added: ‘I am asking Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and Al Qaeda, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists. And in many cases, for them, it will now be Guantanamo Bay.’ But J Wells Dixon, a lawyer for the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, said terror groups will applaud Mr Trump’s ‘announcement that it is now the formal policy of the United States to detain Muslims for ever without charge in an offshore prison’. He said militants will continue to use its existence to recruit new members.

‘Keeping Guantanamo open is politically expedient but exceedingly stupid, no matter how you look at it,’ he added.