A human rights group is asking US President George W. Bush to disclose the fates of all terror suspects held since 2001, including at least 16 it believes have been locked up in secret CIA facilities.
Human Rights Watch said it compiled a report about the 16, whose whereabouts are unknown, along with 22 others possibly held by the CIA, based on interviews with former detainees, press reports and other sources.
The report -- Ghost Prisoner: Two Years in Secret CIA Detention -- includes an accounting from Marwan Jabour, a Palestinian who says he was held incommunicado for more than two years by the US and Pakistan.
Human Rights Watch interviewed Jabour in December and is telling his story as part of a push for more information from the Bush administration. Jabour says he was beaten, burned with an iron, held naked and chained to the wall of his cell so tightly that he could not stand up.
His imprisonment ended last summer when the US flew him to Jordan from a secret detention facility that he believed to be in Afghanistan. By September, the Jordanians turned him over to the Israelis. Six weeks later, he was let go in the Gaza Strip, where the 30-year-old had family.
US counterterrorism officials would not confirm Jabour's account, but they said they view him as one of al-Qaeda's most dangerous members.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the information's sensitivity, said Jabour was in direct contact with al-Qaeda's operational leaders, had ties to al-Qaeda's chemical and biological programs and had plotted to attack US troops in Afghanistan.
In a letter to Bush on Monday, Joanne Mariner, director of Human Rights Watch's terrorism and counterterrorism program, said her organization recognizes some terror suspects may have committed crimes that merit incarceration. Yet "the decision to imprison such persons must be taken in accordance with legal processes," she said. Rather than vanishing, they should be charged with crimes, she said.
In a statement, CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the agency's interrogation program has been conducted lawfully -- "with great care and close review, producing vital information that has helped disrupt plots and save lives."
Gimigliano said that is also true of renditions, when terror suspects are taken from one country to another for questioning. He called it "another key, lawful tool in the fight against terror."
"The United States does not conduct or condone torture, nor does it transfer anyone to other countries for the purpose of torture," Gimigliano said.
There was no immediate comment on Jabour's claims from any of the other countries said to have been involved in his incarceration. A senior counterterrorism official at Pakistan's Ministry of Interior said he would not comment for publication until he had seen the Human Rights Watch report.
In his interviews with Human Rights Watch, Jabour acknowledged only some ties to Arab militants. He said he trained in a militant camp in Afghanistan in 1998, went to Afghanistan in 2001 for a couple of weeks after the US-led invasion and helped Arab militants who fled Afghanistan in 2003.
Jabour said he was arrested in Lahore, Pakistan, in May 2004. He said he suffered the worst physical abuses during more than a month in Pakistani custody: beatings, being burnt and having string tied tightly to his penis to prevent him from urinating.
Later, in US custody, he said he was held naked for about six weeks and only gradually earned clothing.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so