France is ready to take a detainee from Guantanamo Bay when the illegal prison camp is shut down, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Friday after a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama.

He said he had long been a critic of the facility at a U.S. naval base in Cuba but that if Obama needed allies to take detainees in order to close it, France would agree because that was consistent with its desire to see the prison closed.

He said there was one detainee connected to France.

Algeria is a former French colony that secured its independence after a gruesome war that lasted from 1954 to 1962.

Two Algerian nationals -- Lakhdar Boumediene, 42, and Saber Lahmar, 39 -- who have been detained at the controversial US military prison camp for the past seven years were among five cleared for release last November by a US judge who ruled they were illegally detained.

Boumediene has been on a hunger strike for the past two years but Amnesty International says he has been force fed.

Boumediene and Lahmar were among six Guantanamo inmates who were arrested in Bosnia in 2001.

Agencies

Güncelleme Tarihi: 03 Nisan 2009, 16:49