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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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February 26th,
2009 - Obama Dismays Europe by Keeping Rendition Option |
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Obama Dismays
Europe by Keeping Rendition Option By Phil Stewart Reuters February 26, 2009 Rome - Opponents in Europe
of secret CIA transfers of terrorism suspects are disappointed that U.S.
President Barack Obama is keeping rendition as an option in the fight against
terrorism. CIA Director Leon Panetta
told a Senate hearing on February 6 that suspects might still be sent to
third countries for questioning, subject to assurances they would be treated
humanely, an approach he reconfirmed on Wednesday. "Rendition is still
permitted," he told reporters in Washington. "If we render someone
we are obviously going to seek assurances from that country that their human
rights are protected and they are not mistreated." European observers note that
the same assurances were made under former President George W. Bush, yet past
rendition cases have given rise to allegations by human rights lawyers that
detainees were tortured while in the custody of third countries. "The Bush
administration said we only send them to places after the embassy assures us
that not a hair on their heads will be touched," said Claudio Fava, an
EU lawmaker who wrote a European Parliament report on CIA secret flights and
prisons. "But obviously, if you
entrust a presumed terrorist to the Egyptian or Moroccan police, that
assurance is worth little." European critics of President
George W. Bush's handling of the "war on terrorism" had cheered
Obama's orders to close Guantanamo Bay prison, secret detention centres and
ensure interrogations adhere to the Geneva Conventions. The realisation that
rendition will continue to be an option for the new administration surprised
some observers, and dampened European hopes that Obama might lift Bush-era
secrecy over any past operations in Europe that may have led to torture. "We're somewhat
disappointed," said Dick Marty, who authored a report for the Council of
Europe over secret CIA transfers that accused European states of collusion.
"Those who believe in human rights and the rule of law expect
more." Bush-Era Secrecy The Council of Europe's
Human Rights Commissioner has called on European states to seize upon the
change in leadership in Washington to come clean about secret CIA transfers. "Now with the new
(U.S.) government, EU governments could really be honest about it,"
Thomas Hammarberg told reporters. U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy,
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has proposed creating a
commission to review Bush-era security policies including the treatment of
terrorism suspects. But Marty and Fava say Obama
has signalled that secrecy over Bush-era covert operations may continue. His
administration has extended Bush-era secrecy on documents authorising
waterboarding and used a state-secrecy argument to block a rendition lawsuit. "No national sovereign
government including the U.S. is going to start down a path of allowing
national security-relevant information being exposed in courts of law,"
said Robert Ayers, a former U.S. intelligence official. Perhaps nowhere have the
legal ramifications of rendition been better highlighted than in Italy, where
U.S. and Italian spies face kidnapping charges for grabbing a suspect in
Milan. Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr
was taken to Egypt where says he was subjected to electric shock, beatings
and rape threats. Milan prosecutor Armando
Spataro said that although he was denied judicial assistance from the United
States, the biggest challenge to his kidnapping case against spies has come
from Italy - which wants it thrown out on state secrecy grounds. "The problems facing
this case have been mostly created by the Italian governments," Spataro
said. Additional reporting by
Steve Holland in Washington, William Maclean in London and Ingrid Melander in
Brussels. © Thomson Reuters 2008. All
rights reserved. External link: http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKTRE51P5B320090226 Britain in fresh row over
renditions By Paisley Dodds Associated Press February 26, 2009 London - Britain was swept
into a new row over the rendition of terror suspects Thursday, acknowledging
that British troops in Iraq handed over two men to the United States, which
then sent them to Afghanistan for interrogation. Defense Secretary John
Hutton told lawmakers the information was discovered after a thorough review
of detentions in Iraq and Afghanistan - an acknowledgment that seemingly
contradicted previous government denials of facilitating renditions. Hutton said some British
officials knew of the transfer in 2004 and that former Foreign Secretary Jack
Straw - now the Justice Secretary - knew since 2006. Straw's office offered
no immediate comment on Thursday. "I regret that it is
now clear that inaccurate information on this particular issue has been given
to the house by my department," Hutton told lawmakers. "In
retrospect, it is clear to me that the transfer to Afghanistan of these two
individuals should have been questioned at the time." Britain is facing growing
pressure to explain how much it knew about the United States' use of
extraordinary renditions - the practice of sending terror suspects to foreign
countries where harsher interrogation techniques have been used. Questions were raised first
over whether the British government knew that rendition flights had refueled
on British soil but then turned to why the government didn't know about the
rendition of British residents and nationals. Now the question is over
Britain's role in handing over terror suspects to the Americans for
renditions. "How is it possible
that we've been so careless with our own prisoners, nationals and
residents?" asked Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group
Liberty. "Either we didn't know what was happening or we chose not to
know." Britain's Attorney General
is investigating whether there was any criminal wrongdoing by British
officials in the case of Binyam Mohamed, a former British resident who was
released from Guantanamo on Monday. He claims the Americans sent him to
Morocco where he was tortured for 18 months and that Britain knew about it. And in an embarrassing
reversal last year, Britain was forced to admit that the British outpost on
the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia had twice been used by the United
States as a refueling stop for the secret transfer of two terrorism suspects. British Foreign Secretary
David Miliband disclosed the information to lawmakers after U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice released data showing that two suspects had been on
flights to Guantanamo Bay and Morocco in 2002 after stopping on Diego Garcia,
a U.S. base on British soil. The United States initially
denied using the island for extraordinary rendition flights. However, it
later acknowledged that it had misled the British government. President Barack Obama's
administration has said it plans to continue renditions but it may limit the
countries to which it sends terror suspects. According to CIA Director
Leon Panetta, Obama believes prisoners should be handed over only to
countries that have a legal interest in them - their home countries or ones
where prisoners have charges pending. Britain has yet to clarify
its position on renditions except to say it does not condone torture. "This review has
established that officials were aware of this transfer in 2004," Hutton
said. "It has also shown that brief references to this case were
included in lengthy papers that went to the then-Foreign Secretary (Jack
Straw) and Home Secretary (Charles Clarke) in April 2006." The two detainees -
Pakistani men accused of being members of the al-Qaida affiliated
Lashkar-e-Taiba - were captured in 2004 and are still being held in
Afghanistan. "The US government has
explained to us that they were moved to Afghanistan because of a lack of
relevant linguists necessary to interrogate them effectively in Iraq. Hutton said he only became
aware of the situation in December 2008 and ordered a thorough review. "A due diligence search
by US officials of the list of all those individuals captured by UK Forces
and transferred to US detention facilities in Iraq has confirmed that this
was the only case in which individuals were subsequently transferred outside
of Iraq," Hutton said. Opposition Conservative
Party lawmaker Andrew Tyrie called for a full inquiry into Britain's role in
all aspects of rendition. "Since the All Party
Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition was created, I have made a
number of specific allegations - that the UK has facilitated rendition; that
Diego Garcia was used for this purpose; that our Armed Forces were dragged
into rendition," said lawmaker Andrew Tyrie. "Each of these was
categorically denied." Copyright © 2009 The
Associated Press. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5inP-R7zvp1NTHeCcdGybRc8TBnYQD96JD6I80 |