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The
War Profiteers - War Crimes, Kidnappings & Torture |
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The CIA in Europe - Kidnappings and
Secret Detentions |
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Archive on EU and National Government
& NGO Reports - Years 2001 - 2005 |
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December 4th, 2005 - Report on the Legislators’ Dialogue 60th
EP/US Congress Meeting Report by the
Delegation for Relations with the US of the European Parliament “[…] On Security and cooperation in fight against
terrorism (including PNR, visas), the EP Delegation stressed the importance
of cooperation with the US. The two main problems, from the EU point of view,
were ensuring an adequate protection of individual rights, and respecting the
division of powers between the Union and its Member States. “Among dossiers under examination, data retention
(where a draft directive was being prepared) and Passenger Name Records
(where it was expected that the Court of Justice would annul the present
agreement) retained a high importance. The dossier of the ‘secret CIA
prisons’ was very delicate, and there was a strong possibility that the EP
would set up a committee of enquiry. The detention conditions and legal
status of the Guantanamo detainees were legally questionable, but also a ‘PR
disaster’. Shared intelligence was the key to successful counterterrorism,
but the sheer amount of information available was causing problems. “The US Congress Delegation focused on issues of
perception and definition of terrorism. In this area ‘words matter’, and
expressions such as ‘islamic terrorism’ should be avoided. Fight against terrorism
was a matter of balancing personal liberties and common security: the Patriot
act should perhaps be reorganized. While clearly Guantanamo was a ‘PR
disaster’, what were the alternatives? Detention on the spot might have been
a better option. Non-uniformed fighters had to be considered, once captured,
as ‘illegal combatants’. Religions were ‘hijacked’ by terrorists, and common
sense should be used when evaluating the dangers of profiling and
stereotyping. […]” November 29th, 2005 - “Dear Secretary […]” Letter by Jack
Straw, Foreign Secretary, UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office “[…] As the Presidency of the Council of the
European Union, I am writing to you on behalf of the European Union following
media reports suggesting violations of international law in the alleged US
detention or transportation of terrorist suspects in or through EU member
states. This matter was discussed by EU Foreign Ministers at the meeting of
the General Affairs and External Relations Council on 21 November. “The reports have attracted considerable
parliamentary and public attention. The EU would therefore be grateful for
clarification the US can give about these reports in the hope that this will
allay parliamentary and public concerns. “I am sharing a copy of this letter with my European
colleagues. […]” April 25th, 2004 - Exchange of views with Mr. Murray, former UK
ambassador to Uzbekistan Report
by the Council of the European Union “[…] In his introductory remarks, Mr Murray told the
Committee about his experiences of the extraordinary rendition programme in
Uzbekistan. He said that according to the agreement between the UK and the US
intelligence services these services exchanged 100 percent of their
intelligence information. During his time in Uzbekistan he had thus come
across US intelligence, obtained through so called ‘detainee debriefings’,
i.e. torture. He was sure that the US information was obtained through
torture, since the US intelligence he received was consistent with the
confessions that victims of torture had been forced to sign. “When he approached the US embassy about the issue,
he was told that the Uzbekistan intelligence service probably did get its
information through torture, but that the US did not see that as a problem
since the information was vital in the war on terror. He had made a number of
protests to his superiors about the situation, but his protests had had no
effect. “In March 2003, he was summoned back to the UK for a
meeting with officials of the UK Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Mr Murray said
to the Members of the Committee that he at that meeting was told that the UK
Secretary of State, Jack Straw, had personally considered the question and
decided that the UK should continue to receive useful intelligence even if
obtained under torture. Later that month, in a letter written by one of the
participants at the meeting, addressed to one of the officials who had also
attended, it was stated that according to Article 151 of the UN Convention
against Torture it was not an offence under that Convention to receive or
possess information obtained under torture, even though it was an offence to
invoke that information as evidence in proceedings. “According to Mr Murray, receiving or possessing
such information would in any case constitute a breach of Article 4 in the
Convention. Mr Murray stated that while he was against terror as much as
anyone, he believed that ignoring the human rights of Muslims would lead to
an increase in hatred against the West in Muslim countries. Apart from being
illegal and immoral, he said that torture was also an ineffective way to
obtain information, since the victim would ‘confess’ to anything, which would
generate false information. “To questions from Mr Fava (PSE, IT), Mr Murray said
that he was not aware of the CIA sharing its information with any other
European security service than the UK, and said that some European states, in
particular Germany, which still had an airbase and troops in Uzbekistan, had
their own links with Uzbekistan intelligence services. With regard to who had
been tortured, he said that he personally knew about 200-300 cases of persons
who had been tortured, but that the number of persons tortured could be
estimated to be at least 7000. Less than 1 percent of those had links to
terrorist activities. Most of them were simply part of the political
opposition, and were not fundamentalists. People who practiced their religion
and prayed five times a day could be arrested because of that. As for any
investigation of his statements in the UK, he said that there had been none.
Instead, he had been asked to resign as ambassador and a disciplinary action,
in which he was later acquitted, had been instituted. “The Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of
Commons had discussed his case with several people, but his own approaches to
that Committee had not been accepted. Asked by Mr Özdemir (Verts/ALE, DE)
about the position of the UK Government on torture, he said that while the
Government condemned the use of and the instigation of torture, it seemed
happy to receive intelligence obtained through it. He added that the UK
Parliament had never asked about issue. […]” March 13th, 2002 - Memorandum for
William J. Haynes II, General Counsel, Dept. of Defense Memorandum by Jay
S. Bybee, U.S. Assistant Attorney General (10,2 MB) “[…] You have asked for our Office’s views on the
laws applicable to the transfer of members of the Taliban militia, al Qaeda,
or other terrorist organizations, who have come under the control of the United
States armed forces, to other countries. We conclude that the President has
plenary constitutional authority, as the Commander in Chief, to transfer such
individuals who are captured and held outside the United States to the
control of another country. Individuals who are detained within the United
States, however, may be subject to amore complicated set of rules established
by both treaty and statute. “Part I of this memorandum discusses the President’s
constitutional authority, supported by two centuries of historical practice,
to detain and transfer enemy prisoners captured in wartime. It reviews the
two relevant treaties that regulate transfer - the 1949 Geneva Relative to
the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Aug. 12, 1949, 6 U.S.T. 3316 (‘GPW’), and
the Torture Convention and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment, Apr. 18, 1987, 23 I.L.M. 1027 (entered into force June 26, 1987)
(the ‘Torture Convention’ or the ‘Convention’), - and it explains that these
conventions do not apply to the factual situation posed by the transfer of al
Qaeda or Taliban prisoners to third countries. As you have requested, we also
survey in Part II the domestic legal rules governing extradition, and in Part
III the domestic standards that govern removal under the immigration laws. “We conclude that the President has full discretion
to transfer al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners captured overseas and detained
outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States to third countries.
GPW does not restrict the President’s discretion because the President has
determined that the al Qaeda or Taliban detainees are not legally entitled to
prisoner of war (‘POWs’) status within the meaning of the Conventions. The
Torture Convention poses no obstacle to transfer because the treaty does not
apply extraterritorially. As removal applies only to the transfer of
individuals already within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States,
and as extradition is rarely if ever applied to individuals held abroad,
those methods of transfer do not apply to the detainees held either in
Afghanistan or at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. […]” |
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