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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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August 25th,
2009 - Amnesty Calls for Rendition Review |
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Amnesty Calls for Rendition Review From Irish Times August 25, 2009 Amnesty International has
today called for the Government to review its renditions policy in the wake
of a CIA Inspector General’s report yesterday. "The fresh revelations
that CIA agents carried out mock executions and made threats of violent
torture shows just how much the world did not know about the Bush
administration’s illegal actions,” said Amnesty International Ireland
executive director Colm O’Gorman. “For Ireland this raises
again the policy of the Irish Government to rely on denials from the US
Government that Shannon was used to transport prisoners. Similar assurances
the US government gave Ireland, and the world, that it was not involved in
torture are looking increasingly threadbare," he said. Mr O'Gorman welcomed steps
in the United States and Britain to investigate the use of torture by their
agents, "but this exposes the failure of our own Government to
investigate the use of Shannon airport and Irish airspace in US renditions
operations". “The Irish Government does
not, and did not, know what went through Ireland’s airports on secret CIA
flights. “CIA planes illegally
claimed to be civilian aircraft while travelling through our airspace and
using Shannon Airport. The Irish Government has never investigated this. Our
Government does not know because it chooses not to know," Mr O'Gorman
said. “It is now almost a year
since the Government established a special cabinet sub-committee to review
the law on searching suspected rendition flights. There has been little, if
any, progress." Mr O'Gorman called on the Taoiseach to announce when the
Cabinet review will take place. US attorney general Eric
Holder yesterday named a special prosecutor to examine CIA prisoner abuse
cases. Mr Holder's decision came after the Justice Department's ethics
watchdog recommended considering prosecution of CIA employees or contractors
for harsh interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan that went beyond approved
limits. Career prosecutor John
Durham will head the investigation, adding to the one he is already doing of
the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing harsh interrogations of terrorism
suspects. As Mr Holder made his
decision, new details emerged about "enhanced" interrogation
techniques used after the September 11th attacks on the United States under
then-president George W. Bush but subsequently scratched by Mr Obama when he
took office. Bush officials, including
vice president Dick Cheney, have denied that torture was used and defended
their interrogation practices as legal. External link: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0825/breaking36.htm |