Genialt!
Trond Andresen
>The Guardian Monday March 11, 2002
>
>US sends suspects to face torture
>
> By Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
>The US has been secretly sending prisoners suspected of al-Qaida connections
>to countries where torture during interrogation is legal, according to US
>diplomatic and intelligence sources. Prisoners moved to such countries as
>Egypt and Jordan can be subjected to torture and threats to their families
>to extract information sought by the US in the wake of the September 11
>attacks.
>
>The normal extradition procedures have been bypassed in the transportation
>of dozens of prisoners suspected of terrorist connections, according to a
>report in the Washington Post. The suspects have been taken to countries
>where the CIA has close ties with the local intelligence services and where
>torture is permitted.
>
>According to the report, US intelligence agents have been involved in a
>number of interrogations. A CIA spokesman yesterday said the agency had no
>comment on the allegations. A state department spokesman said the US had
>been "working very closely with other countries - It's a global fight
>against terrorism".
>
>"After September 11, these sorts of movements have been occurring all the
>time," a US diplomat told the Washington Post. "It allows us to get
>information from terrorists in a way we can't do on US soil."
>
>The seizing of suspects and taking them to a third country without due
>process of law is known as "rendition". The reason for sending a suspect to
>a third country rather than to the US, according to the diplomats, is an
>attempt to avoid highly publicised cases that could lead to a further
>backlash from Islamist extremists.
>
>One of the prisoners transported in this way, Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni, is
>allegedly linked to Richard Reid, the Briton accused of the attempted "shoe
>bomb" attack on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December.
>He was taken from Indonesia to Egypt on a US-registered Gulfstream jet
>without a court hearing after his name appeared on al-Qaida documents. He
>remains in custody in Egypt and has been subjected to interrogation by
>intelligence agents.
>
>An Indonesian government official said disclosing the Americans' role would
>have exposed President Megawati Sukarnoputri to criticism from Muslim
>political parties. "We can't be seen to be cooperating too closely with the
>United States," the official said.
>
>A Yemeni microbiology student has also been taken in this way, being flown
>from Pakistan to Jordan on a US-registered jet. US forces also seized five
>Algerians and a Yemeni in Bosnia on January 19 and flew them to Guantanamo
>Bay after the men were released by the Bosnian supreme court for lack of
>evidence, and despite an injunction from the Bosnian human rights chamber
>that four of them be allowed to remain in the country pending further
>proceedings.
>
>The US has been criticised by some of its European allies over the detention
>of prisoners at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After the Pentagon
>released pictures of blindfolded prisoners kneeling on the ground, the
>defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was forced to defend the conditions in
>which they were being held.
>
>Unsuccessful attempts have been made by civil rights lawyers based in Los
>Angeles to have the Camp X-Ray prisoners either charged in US courts or
>treated as prisoners of war. The US administration has resisted such moves,
>arguing that those detained, both Taliban fighters and members of al-Qaida,
>were not entitled to be regarded as prisoners of war because they were
>terrorists rather than soldiers and were not part of a recognised, uniformed
>army.
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