- The Central Intelligence Agency's 'rendition' of suspected
terrorists has spiralled 'out of control' according to a former FBI agent,
cited in a report which examined how CIA detainees are spirited to states
suspected of using torture.
-
- Michael Scheuer a former CIA counterterrorism agent
told The New Yorker magazine "all we've done is create a nightmare,"
with regard to the top secret practice of renditions.
-
- In an article titled 'Outsourcing Torture' due to
hit newsstands this week, the magazine claims suspects, sometimes picked
up by the CIA, are often flown to Egypt , Morocco, Syria and Jordan , "each
of which is known to use torture in interrogations."
-
- The report said suspects are given few, if any, legal
protections.
-
- Despite US laws that ban America from expelling or
extraditing individuals to countries where torture occurs, Scott Horton
-- an expert on international law who has examined CIA renditions -- estimates
that 150 people have been picked up in the CIA dragnet since 2001.
-
- The New Yorker report said that suspects in Europe,
Africa, Asia and the Middle East "have been abducted by hooded or
masked American agents" and then sometimes forced onto a white Gulfstream
V jet.
-
- The jet -- marked on its tail by the code N379P which
has recently been changed to N8068V -- "has been registered to a series
of dummy American corporations ... (and) has clearance to land at US military
bases," it said.
-
- Maher Arar was arrested in 2002 by US officials at
John F. Kennedy airport and then claims he was put on a "executive
jet" which flew him to Amman, Jordan , before he was driven to Syria
.
-
- Arar says he was tortured in Syria ?and told his
interrogators anything they wanted due to the beatings He was released
without charge in 2003 and is suing the US government for his mistreatment.
-
- He claims that the crew onboard the Gulfstream identified
themselves as "the Special Removal Unit" during radio communications
on his flight to Jordan .
-
- "The most common destinations for rendered
suspects are Egypt , Morocco, Syria ?and Jordan , all of which have been
cited for human rights violations by the (US) State Department," the
report said.
-
- By holding detainees without counsel or charges of
wrongdoing, the administration of US President George W. Bush "has
jeopardized its chances of convicting hundreds of suspected terrorists,
or even of using them as witnesses in almost any court in the world,"
the report said.
-
- The article cited Dan Coleman, an ex Federal Bureau
of Investigation counterterrorism expert who retired in July 2003.
-
- Coleman told The New Yorker that torture "has
become bureaucratized," by the Bush administration, and that the practice
of renditions is "out of control."
-
- Scheuer said there had been a legal process underlying
early renditions, but as more suspects were rounded up following the September
11, 2001, attacks, "all we've done is create a nightmare."
-
- Abductees are effectively classified as "illegal
enemy combatants," by the US government, which is how it also classifies
the estimated 550 'war on terror' detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
.
-
- Such a classifiction, the US argues, exempts such
detainees from the protections of the Geneva Conventions, part of which
govern the treatment of prisoners.
-
- The report also cited the former British Ambassador
to Uzbekistan , Craig Murray, as saying Washington ?has accepted intelligence
from Uzkbekistan that was "largely rubbish."
-
- The ambassador claims to know of at least three
individuals rendered to Uzbekistan ?by the United States, where cases of
the authorities boiling prisoners' body parts have been documented.
-
- Washington ?has admitted it is holding some suspects,
including top Al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but it does not
say where he is detained.
-
- Mohammed has reportedly been "water boarded"
during interrogations: So called 'water boarding' refers to a practice
whereby a detainee is bound and immersed in water until he nearly drowns.
|
