The US government has plans to build a high-security prison in Afghanistan to hold terrorsuspects, including some who would be transferred from the controversial US naval base at Guantánamo Bay.

The site selected for the jail is Pol-e-Charki, a rundown prison near Kabul dating from the Soviet era. Some of the base's prison facilities have recently been refurbished as part of a European Union-financed criminal justice reform programme backed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.