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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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February 9th,
2009 - Rendition Case in S.F. to Test Obama Policies News article from San Francisco
Chronicle |
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Rendition Case
in S.F. to Test Obama Policies By Bob Egelko San Francisco Chronicle February 9, 2009 The public is likely to get
its first close look at the Obama administration's policies on torture,
secrecy and prisoners' rights in a San Francisco courtroom today, when
federal judges press a government lawyer for a position on the practice known
as extraordinary rendition. Five men - one now
imprisoned in Egypt, one in Morocco, one at Guantanamo Bay and two who have
been released without charges - are asking the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals to reinstate a lawsuit that accuses a San Jose flight-planning
company of helping the CIA transport them to overseas dungeons for
interrogation and torture. The suit against Jeppesen
Dataplan, a Boeing Co. subsidiary, has never gone to trial. The Bush
administration intervened and persuaded U.S. District Judge James Ware to
dismiss the case in February 2008 on the grounds that allowing it to proceed
could expose state secrets and harm national security. The Justice Department has
urged the appeals court to uphold Ware's ruling, saying that if the case goes
to court, it could disclose ultra-sensitive information - the CIA's alleged
relationship with a private company, its methods of holding and interrogating
suspected terrorists, and the alleged cooperation of foreign governments. The
department filed a supporting brief containing classified information under
seal. Obama’s course unclear But those arguments were
made when George W. Bush was president. The American Civil Liberties Union,
which represents the plaintiffs suing Jeppesen, is looking for President Obama
to reverse course. "The administration
should unequivocally reject the Bush administration's abuse of the state
secrets privilege and permit this case to go forward," said ACLU
attorney Ben Wizner. "Victims of extraordinary rendition deserve their
day in court." Extraordinary rendition
refers to the practice of abducting suspected criminals and terrorists
without any extradition or legal proceedings, and taking them to foreign
countries or CIA prisons for detention and interrogation. The Bush administration,
which used the practice extensively, maintained it never took a prisoner to a
foreign country without first obtaining assurances that no torture would be
used. But there is considerable
evidence that some prisoners were treated harshly, including the case of
Maher Arar, a Canadian seized by U.S. agents at a New York airport in 2002
and flown in shackles to his native Syria - a nation with a record of
torturing prisoners. Arar, who is not involved in
the case before the Ninth Circuit, was returned 10 months later to Canada.
That nation eventually paid him $10 million, finding he had been picked up by
mistake and tortured. The United States still bars him from entering this
country. Plaintiffs allege torture The five plaintiffs in the
Jeppesen case also allege that they have been tortured in captivity. One of
them, Binyam Mohamed, a British resident now held at Guantanamo, was the
subject of an international uproar last week when Britain's high court said
it could not release details of his treatment at Guantanamo because
Washington had threatened to stop cooperating with London on intelligence. The State Department sent a
message of thanks to the British government after the ruling, but it's not
clear whether the message reflected the Obama administration's position. Jeppesen provides a variety
of flight-planning services. A Council of Europe report in 2007 identified
the company as the CIA's aviation services provider. A court declaration by a
former Jeppesen employee quoted a company director as telling staffers in
August 2006 that the company handled torture flights. The suit accuses Jeppesen of
arranging at least 70 flights for the CIA since 2001, including those of the
five plaintiffs. No secret In opposing the government's
bid for dismissal, the ACLU argued that the rendition program is not a
secret, noting that Bush and other top officials openly defended the program. The Justice Department, now
led by Obama-appointed Attorney General Eric Holder, has not withdrawn its
predecessor's written arguments in the case or asked for a postponement to
reconsider its position. Department spokesman Charles Miller said he had no
information on what stance the department would take at today's hearing. A possible clue came in
Thursday's Senate Intelligence Committee testimony by Leon Panetta, the
former California congressman nominated by Obama to head the CIA. He said the
president would prohibit "that kind of extraordinary rendition when we
send someone for the purpose of torture or actions by another country that
violate our human values." But Panetta endorsed
rendition to send someone to another country to face prosecution. On the other hand, Wizner
said Obama's executive order to close secret CIA prisons should curb some of
the past abuses. He said he was also
heartened by the president's endorsement of international laws against
torture - in contrast with the Bush administration's narrower definitions -
and Obama's promise of an open government. "This is a case,"
the ACLU lawyer said, "where I would be surprised if the Obama
administration were to support arguments that the Bush administration
made." External link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/08/MN3M15OU2E.DTL |