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The War Profiteers - War Crimes, Kidnappings,
Torture and Big Money |
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August 3rd,
2008 - US ‘Held Suspects on British Territory in 2006’ |
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US ‘Held Suspects
on British Territory in 2006’ By James Doward The Observer August 3, 2008 Terrorist suspects were held
by the United States on the British territory of Diego Garcia as recently as
2006, according to senior intelligence sources. The claims, which undermine
Foreign Office denials that the archipelago in the Indian Ocean has been used
as a so-called 'black site' to facilitate extraordinary rendition, threaten
to cause a diplomatic incident. The government has
repeatedly accepted US assurances that Diego Garcia has not been used to hold
high-ranking members of al-Qaeda who have been flown to secret interrogation
centres around the world in 'ghost' planes hired by the CIA. Interrogation
techniques used on suspects are said to include 'waterboarding', a simulated
drowning that Amnesty International claims is a form of torture. But now the
government's denials over Diego Garcia's role in extraordinary rendition are
crumbling. Senior American intelligence sources have claimed that the US has
been holding terrorist suspects on the British territory as recently as two
years ago. The former intelligence
officers unofficially told senior Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón that Mustafa
Setmarian, a Spanish-based Syrian accused of running terrorist training camps
in Afghanistan, was taken to Diego Garcia in late 2005 and held there for months.
The Spanish are trying to locate and arrest Setmarian for separate terrorist
offences. It is thought that more than
10 high-ranking detainees have been held on Diego Garcia or on a US navy
vessel within its harbour since 2002. The suggestion, if true, is acutely
embarrassing for the British government which has admitted only that planes
carrying al-Qaeda suspects landed on Diego Garcia on two occasions in 2002. However, a former senior
American official familiar with conversations in the White House has also
told Time magazine that in the same year Diego Garcia was used to hold and
interrogate at least one terrorist suspect. The Council of Europe has
also raised concerns that the UK territory has been used to house detainees.
Earlier this year Manfred Novak, the United Nations special investigator on
torture, told The Observer he had talked to detainees who had been held on
the archipelago in 2002, but declined to name them. The human rights group
Reprieve said it believes most of high-level detainees captured by the US
have been rendered through Diego Garcia at one time or another. These include
Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi accused of being one of al-Qaeda's top strategists, and
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, allegedly the mastermind behind 9/11. 'We are confident high-value
prisoners have been held on Diego Garcia for interrogation and possible
torture,' said a Reprieve spokeswoman. 'We now have sources from the CIA, the
UN, the Council of Europe and a Spanish judge who will confirm this.' External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/03/terrorism.usforeignpolicy |