The CIA's independent watchdog is investigating fewer than 10 cases where terror suspects may have been mistakenly swept away to foreign countries by the spy agency, a figure lower than published reports but enough to raise misgivings.
After the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush gave the CIA authority to conduct the contentious operations, called "renditions," and permitted the agency to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or other administration offices.
The highly classified practice involves grabbing terror suspects off the street in one country and flying them to their home country or another where they are wanted for crimes or questioning.
PHOTO: EPA
Some 100 to 150 people have been snatched up since Sept. 11. Government officials say the action is reserved for those considered by the CIA to be the most serious terror suspects.
Bush has said that the transfers to other countries -- with assurances the terror suspects won't be tortured -- are a way to protect the US and its allies from attack.
"That was the charge we have been given," he said in March.
Still, some operations are being questioned.
The CIA's inspector general, John Helgerson, is looking into fewer than 10 cases of potentially "erroneous renditions," according to a current intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigations are classified. Others in the agency believe the number under investigation is many fewer than 10, the official added.
For instance, someone may be grabbed wrongly or, after further investigation, may not be as directly linked to terrorism as first believed.
Human-rights groups consider the practice of rendition a strategy to avoid the judicial processes long championed by the US.
With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, has sued the CIA for arbitrarily detaining him and other alleged violations after he was captured in Macedonia in December 2003 and taken to Afghanistan by a team of operatives in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
Speaking to reporters by video hookup from Germany, al-Masri said he was ``dragged off the plane and thrown into the trunk of a car'' and beaten by his captors in Afghanistan. Five months later, he was dropped off on a hill in Albania.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
RSS