U.S. President said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that he would like to close the U.S.military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to have the detainees there tried.

"I very much would like to end Guantanamo; I very much would like to get people to a court," Bush said in an interview with the German television ARD on Thursday.

The White House released transcripts of the interview on Sunday.

Bush said the administration was waiting for a ruling from the Supreme Court on whether the detainees "need to have a fair trial in a civilian court or in a military court."

He admitted that the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, where Iraqi prisoners were abused by U.S. soldiers in late 2003 and early 2004, was a disgrace for the country, but added that people "ought to take a look at what happened afterwards."

The United States has been accused by human rights groups of mistreating detainees at Guantanamo and criticized for their indefinite detention.

The United States opened the prison on its Navy base in Guantanamo in January 2002, and about 480 prisoners are still being held there. Only 10 of them have been charged by the military tribunals, and no verdicts have been issued so far.

Source:Xinhua