Group Says U.S. Sent Up to 150 to Possible Torture
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Human Rights Watch also criticizes the military's investigations
of the way it treats foreign detainees.
By Richard A. Serrano
Times Staff Writer
April 24,
2005
WASHINGTON — A civil liberties group investigating allegations of prisoner abuse will report today that
since the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. agents have secretly transported up to 150 detainees to countries that may practice torture.
Such
transporting, known as rendition, is more widespread than the government has reported, according to Human Rights Watch. In
a report issued a year after the earliest revelations of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, the group said the renditions,
along with abuses of foreign detainees by U.S. forces, were possible violations of international law.
The group also
said an Army investigation clearing top U.S. military commanders of wrongdoing in the scandal at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad established
the need for an outside inquiry.
"This just proves the military can't investigate itself," said Reed Brody, a lawyer
for Human Rights Watch, which monitors civil rights issues around the world. "It seems like another in a long line of attempts
at self-absolution."
Brody's organization and the American Civil Liberties Union are among the groups that have sought
the appointment of a special counsel to investigate U.S. detention practices since a string of Pentagon inquiries found few
cases of wrongdoing, especially in higher military ranks or among civilian officials.
Revelations on Friday that an
upcoming report by the Army inspector general would exonerate Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former chief U.S. commander in
Iraq, and three other top officers proves the inadequacy of the military's probes, the rights groups said.
"These findings
only show that the president must appoint a special counsel — who is not beholden by rank or party and who is able to
look up the military chain of command," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero in a statement Saturday.
The
Human Rights Watch report comes amid growing concern on Capitol Hill over sending prisoners to countries such as Syria and
Egypt, which are widely believed to torture prisoners for interrogation purposes.
The Bush administration has acknowledged
that renditions have occurred, but officials at the CIA and elsewhere have not definitively said how many captives may have
been detained by the United States in one country, then clandestinely flown to a third nation.
Former CIA Director
George J. Tenet has said his agency took part in more than 70 renditions before Sept. 11, but he has not made clear whether
any involved sending detainees to countries that permitted torture.
His successor, CIA Director Porter J. Goss, testified
in February before the Senate Intelligence Committee that experts did not believe prisoner abuse was an effective way to get
information.
According to Goss, when prisoners are transferred, the U.S. "seeks assurances" that they will not be mistreated.
Last
week, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W. Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, urged a separate congressional
review of how the CIA detained and interrogated prisoners.
Human Rights Watch said its determination that there were
100 to 150 renditions was based on its own investigative work and media reports from around the world.
The organization
cited some examples as part of the release of today's report:
• Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, was
picked up by U.S. authorities at a New York airport, flown to Jordan and driven to Syria, the group said. After being released
10 months later, he described "repeated torture, often with cables and electrical cords, during his confinement in a Syrian
prison."
• Swedish officials turned over two Egyptians, Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed al-Zari, to U.S. officials.
The men were allegedly hooded, shackled and drugged, placed aboard a U.S. government-leased plane and flown to Egypt. "The
two men were reportedly tortured, including in Cairo's notorious Tora prison," Human Rights Watch said.
•
Osama Moustafa Nasr of Milan, Italy, has complained that Americans seized him and flew him to Egypt. There, he has said, the
secret police beat him so badly that he lost hearing in one ear.
The organization said it did not know how many other
cases there might be or what had happened to most of the other detainees "rendered" to other countries.
"These are
the only ones we can document," Brody said.
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