President Barack Obama’s half-hearted five-year bid to to close the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba suffered a major setback on Monday.

Reactionary senators finalising the annual Defence Policy Bill rejected steps toward shutting the torture camp.

The chairman of the armed services committee, Democratic Senator Carl Levin, said that the Bill does not give Mr Obama the authority to transfer suspects to the US.

Mr Levin had pushed for that to be included, calling it “a path to close Guantanamo.”

But, hamstrung by this month’s lame-duck session, relatively progressive MPs were unable to prevail.

The House and Senate are expected to overwhelmingly approve the Bill soon.

Mr Obama has limply pushed to the close the torture camp since 2009 but he has been opposed in Congress by Republicans and even some Democrats.