Should an american citizen have rights in regard to the judicial process that a non citizen does not have.?
If a non citizen can be put through "rendition" why should not an american citizen be subject to it as well?
Extraordinary rendition
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Extraordinary renditions allegedly have been carried out from these countries Detainees have allegedly been transported through these countries Detainees have allegedly arrived in these countries The U.S. and suspected CIA "black sites"Sources: Amnesty International[1], Human Rights Watch, Black sites article on Wikipedia
Extraordinary rendition and irregular rendition are terms used to describe the extrajudicial transfer of a person from one state to another, and torture by proxy is used by some critics to describe extraordinary rendition by the United States, with regard to the alleged transfer of suspected terrorists to countries known to employ harsh interrogation techniques that may rise to the level of torture. Critics have alleged the use of torture has occurred with the knowledge or acquiescence of the United States. However United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated in an April 2006 radio interview that the United States does not transfer people to places where they know they will be tortured.[2][3][4]
Contents
[hide]
1 War on Terror
2 EU Investigations
3 Imam Rapito
4 Background
5 Usage by the Clinton Administration
6 Usage by the Bush Administration
7 Reported methodology
7.1 Airline flights
7.2 Boeing Jeppessen International Trip Planning
7.3 "Black sites"
8 Debate over legality, utility
8.1 Torture
9 Investigations
9.1 Craig Murray 2003 revelations
9.2 Public revelations concerning the extraordinary renditions
9.3 Extraordinary renditions and black sites in Europe
9.4 Criticisms of the Washington Post's decision to withhold locations of the black sites
9.5 UN report by Manfred Nowak
10 "Erroneous rendition"
11 Examples and specific cases
11.1 The Khaled Masri case
11.2 The Abu Omar case
11.3 The Majid Mahmud Abdu Ahmad case
11.4 The Muhammad Bashmila case
12 Investigations in Europe
12.1 Shannon Airport, Ireland
12.2 July 2005 opening of investigations in France concerning CIA flights
12.3 November 2005 opening of investigations in Spain concerning CIA flights
12.4 Germany
12.5 Kosovo
12.6 The Council of Europe investigation and its June 2006 report
12.7 June 27, 2006 Council of Europe resolution
12.8 2007 Investigations in Portugal concerning CIA flights
12.9 The European Parliament's February 14, 2007 report
13 Treaty obligations of the United States
14 Others reports
15 Bibliography
16 See also
17 Notes
18 External links
18.1 2006
18.2 2005
18.3 2004
18.4 2003
18.5 2002
18.6 2001
19 Terminology
[edit]War on Terror
Since the start of the "War on Terror" declared by the Bush administration after the September 11, 2001 attacks, critics, such as Scott Horton, an expert on international law and anti-war advocate, accuse the United States government, in particular the the CIA, of rendering hundreds of people suspected by the United States government of being terrorists – or of aiding and abetting terrorist organizations – to third-party states such as Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, and Uzbekistan. Such "ghost detainees" are kept outside of judicial oversight, often without ever entering US territory, and may or may not ultimately be devolved to the custody of the United States.[5][6]
[edit]EU Investigations
The US program has raised a series of moral, judicial, and political issues, prompting several official European Union investigations. A June 2006 report from the Council of Europe estimated one hundred persons had been kidnapped by the CIA on EU territory and rendered to other countries, often after having transited through secret detention centers ("black sites") used by the CIA in cooperation with other governments. According to the European Parliament report of February 2007, the CIA has conducted 1,245 flights, many of them to destinations where suspects could face torture, in violation of article 3 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture. A large majority of the European Union Parliament endorsed the report's conclusion that many member states tolerated illegal actions of the CIA and criticized several European governments and intelligence agencies for their unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation. [7]
[edit]Imam Rapito
One notable example is the "Imam Rapito affair" in Italy, in which Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (aka Abu Omar), a radical Islamist cleric, was kidnapped in a joint CIA-SISMI operation in Milan on February 17, 2003, was transferred to the Aviano Air Base, and was rendered to Egypt, where he was held until February 11, 2007, when an Egyptian court ruled his imprisonment was "unfounded."[8] He claims he was tortured both on the Aviano Base and in Egypt. Italian prosecutors investigating the kidnapping, and have indicted 26 US citizens including the head of CIA in Italy Jeffrey W. Castelli and 24 other CIA agents. They have also sent extradition requests to the Italian Ministry of Justice, which has not delivered it to American authorities. SISMI chief General Nicolò Pollari and second-in-command Marco Mancini have been forced to resign, and were also indicted. The trial of the 26 Americans and 9 Italians has been scheduled to begin in June 2007.
[edit]Background
While legal rendition has been used by the United States increasingly since the 1980s as a method for dealing with foreign defendants, extraordinary rendition is a wholly extra-legal process that differs in its nature and usage as a tool in the US-led "war on terror."[9] Because the modern methods of rendition include a form where suspects are taken into US custody but delivered to a third-party state, often without ever being on American soil, and without involving the rendering country's judiciary, they have been termed extraordinary rendition. The Central Intelligence Agency was granted permission to use rendition in a presidential directive signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995,[10] and the practice has grown sharply since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Scott Horton, an expert on international law who helped prepare a report on renditions issued by N.Y.U. Law School and the New York City Bar Association
Critics - some of whom dub the procedure "torture by proxy"[11][12] - have accused the CIA of rendering suspects to other countries in order to avoid US laws prescribing due process and prohibiting torture, even though many of those countries have, like the US, signed or ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Critics have also called this practice "torture flights".[13] Defenders of the practice argue that culturally-informed and native-language interrogations are more successful in gaining information from suspects.[14] CIA desk officer Michael Scheuer, who co-authored the rendition policy and sereved in the CIA's Bin Laden tracking desk until 2004, has told the press that torture was used both before and after 9/11: “I have no doubt about it.”[15]
In a number of cases, suspects to whom the procedure is believed to have been applied later appeared to be innocent.[16] In the cases of Khalid El-Masri and Maher Arar the practice of extraordinary rendition appears to have been applied to innocent civilians, and the CIA has reportedly launched an investigation into such cases (which it refers to as "erroneous rendition").
The first well-known rendition case involved the Achille Lauro hijackers in 1985: while in international air space they were forced by United States Navy fighter planes to land at the Naval Air Station Sigonella, an Italian military base in Sicily used by NATO, in an attempt to place them within judicial reach of United States Government representatives for transport to and trial in the United States. The practice later expanded to include the deportation or expulsion into United States custody of persons in foreign countries deemed to be enemy aliens or terrorists.[citation needed]
The procedure was developed by Central Intelligence Agency officials in the mid-1990s who were trying to track down and dismantle militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East, particularly Al Qaeda.[15] At the time, the agency was reluctant to grant suspected terrorists due process under American law, as the attendant disclosures of government information under the rules of disclosure could potentially jeopardize its intelligence sources and methods.
[edit]Usage by the Clinton Administration
The procedure was developed by Central Intelligence Agency officials in the mid-1990s who were trying to track down and dismantle militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East, particularly Al Qaeda [17]. At the time, the agency was reluctant to grant suspected terrorists due process under American law, as the attendant disclosures of government information under the rules of disclosure could potentially jeopardize its intelligence sources and methods.[citation needed]
According to Clinton Administration official Richard Clarke,
"'extraordinary renditions', were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgement of the host government...The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, 'That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.'"[18]
In a New Yorker magazine interview with CIA veteran Michael Scheuer, an author of the rendition program under the Clinton Administration, writer Jane Mayer noted, "In 1995, American agents proposed the rendition program to Egypt, making clear that it had the resources to track, capture, and transport terrorist suspects globally—including access to a small fleet of aircraft. Egypt embraced the idea. "What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian," Scheuer said. "It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated." Technically, U.S. law requires the CIA to seek "assurances" from foreign governments that rendered suspects won’t be tortured. Scheuer told me that this was done, but he was "not sure" if any documents confirming the arrangement were signed."[5]
Thereafter, with the approval of President Clinton and a presidential directive (PDD 39), the CIA instead elected to send suspects to Egypt, where they were turned over to the Egyptian mukhabarat. This arrangement suited the Egyptians, who were trying to crack down on domestic Islamic extremists, and a number of the senior members of Al Qaeda were Egyptian.[citation needed] The arrangement also suited the US by enabling the interrogation of suspects without the intercession of the domestic legal process, using Egyptian methods.[citation needed]
The first known individual to be subjected to rendition under this order was Talaat Fouad Qassem, one of Egypt's most wanted terrorists, who was arrested with the help of US intelligence by Croatian police in Zagreb in September 1995.[citation needed] He was interrogated by US agents on a ship in the Adriatic Sea and was then sent back to Egypt. He disappeared while in custody, and is suspected by human rights activists of having been executed without a trial.[citation needed]
In the summer of 1998, a similar operation was mounted in Tirana, Albania. Wiretaps showed that five Egyptians had been in contact with Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy.[citation needed] During the course of several months, Shawki Salama Attiya and four militants were captured by Albanian security forces collaborating with US agents. The men were flown to Cairo for interrogation. Attiya later alleged that he had electric shocks applied to his genitals, was hung from his limbs, and was kept in a cell with dirty water up to his knees.[citation needed]
[edit]Usage by the Bush Administration
Initially, the procedure was applied primarily to individuals for whom there were outstanding arrest warrants. After the 9/11 attacks the program appears to have been expanded and some believe it now encompasses individuals for whom there are but vague suspicions. The Justice Department and the Defense Department also do renditions.[citation needed]
According to a December 4, 2005 article in the Washington Post by Dana Priest, "Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA's own covert prisons – referred to in classified documents as "black sites," which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern Europe.[19][20]
Following mounting scrutiny in Europe, including investigations held by Swiss senator Dick Marty who released a public report in June 2006, the US Senate was about, in December 2005, to approve a measure that would include amendments requiring the director of national intelligence to provide regular, detailed updates about secret detention facilities maintained by the United States overseas, and to account for the treatment and condition of each prisoner.[21]
Critics charge that the program has "spun out of control", and has been used against large numbers of individuals.[citation needed]
[edit]Reported methodology
Media reports describe suspects as being arrested, blindfolded, shackled, and sedated, or otherwise kidnapped, and transported by private jet or other means to the destination country.[22] The reports also say that the rendering countries have provided interrogators with lists of questions.
[edit]Airline flights
Further information: Rendition aircraft
In February 2007 it was reported that the JGO (Juliet Golf Oscar) former call sign assigned to defunct airline Jetsgo was allegedly used for planes going in and out of the Balkans, including Learjet 35 executive jets, C-130 transport planes and MC-130P Combat Shadows. A Sunday Times analysis of flight plans and radio logs has placed these aircraft at locations including Tuzla in Bosnia, Priština in Kosovo, and Aviano Air Base in Northern Italy, as well as Ramstein, headquarters fo the US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE). On December 11, 2004, USAFE in Ramstein filed a flight plan for a Learjet 35 to fly from Tuzla to Aviano. USAFE changed its registration in flight, while keeping its humanitarian, diplomatic, and governmental status. While on ground at Tuzla in Bosnia, an Ilyushin 76 left Tuzla 55 minutes before, with 45 tons of surplus weapons and ammunitions, which were sold off by the Bosnian military (at the time member of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and destined to Rwanda. The latter country was currently subject to a UN embargo on arms-trade. An Amnesty International report quoted by the British newspapers suggested that "US security authorities were engaged in a covert operation to ferry arms to Rwanda in the face of political opposition from the European Union".
Another strange convergence of flights happened in February 2004, according to The Sunday Times. An MC-130P Combat Shadow using the call sign JGO 50 took off from Aviano to an unknown destination on February 24. Two days later, it left Priština for Tuzla. A short time after, a Gulfstream 5 executive jet (call sign JGO 47) flew from Tuzla to Aviano. The next day, a Learjet 35 left Aviano for an unknown destination, using call sign SPAR 92.
SPAR is short for SPecial Air Resources, a US military aircraft service that transport civilian VIPs and senior military officers. But SPAR 92 has been identified as the aircraft that was used to transport Hassan Nasr (aka Abu Omar), the cleric kidnapped in Italy in 2003 and for which CIA agents have been indicted in Italy (See below).
The US military denied the reports and stated that aircraft using the call sign were involved in a programme called "Joint Guard Operations" for the NATO-European peacekeeping mission in the Balkans (which established the SFOR). However, "Joint Guard" ended in 1998. Inquiries also show that none of the US aircraft deployed in it match ones using the JGO call-sign.[23]
[edit]Boeing Jeppessen International Trip Planning
On October 23, 2006, the New Yorker claimed that Jeppesen, a subsidiary of Boeing, handled the logistical planning for the CIA's extraordinary rendition flights. The allegation is based on information from an ex-employee who quoted Bob Overby, managing director of the company as saying "We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights—you know, the torture flights. Let’s face it, some of these flights end up that way. It certainly pays well." The article went on to suggest that this may make Jeppesen a potential defendant in a law suit by Khaled El-Masri.[24]
[edit]"Black sites"
In 2005, the Washington Post and Human Rights Watch (HRW) published revelations concerning CIA flights and "black sites," covert prisons that are operated by the CIA and whose existence is denied by the US government. The European Parliament published a report in February 2007 concerning the use of such secret detention centers and extraordinary rendition (See below). Such detention centers violate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the UN Convention Against Torture, treaties that all EU member states are bound to follow.[25][26][27]
According to ABC News two such facilities, in countries mentioned by Human Rights Watch, have been closed following the recent publicity. CIA officers say the captives were relocated to the North African desert. All but one of these 11 high-value al Qaeda prisoners were subjected to the harshest interrogation techniques in the CIA's secret arsenal, the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" authorized for use by about 14 CIA officers.[28]
[edit]Debate over legality, utility
Evidence obtained illegally or under duress is inadmissible in US courts, and hampers court cases against suspected terrorists in the US. The trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person to be indicted in the US in connection with the 9/11 attacks, was in part complicated by Moussaoui's requests for access to confidential documents and his assertion of a right to call al-Qaida members held in captivity in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as witnesses, a demand rejected by government attorneys on the grounds that it would compromise confidential sources.
The House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs in their first report published on 15 February 2006, points out that althought both the UK and the U.S. have ratified UNCAT, the UK ratified it without resevations, but the US ratified CAT with a reservations that specifies the meaning of "mental pain or suffering" in more detail than Article 1 CAT, and that under U.S. legislation, the term "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" is interpreted according to the U.S. Constitution, (see Treaty obligations, below). Having made this point the report goes on to say in paragraph 44 that:[29]
The US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice has denied the use of torture, in response to a letter written by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on behalf of the United Kingdom as Presidency of the European Union. On 5 December 2005 she said: Rendition is a vital tool in combating trans-national terrorism. Its use is not unique to the United States, or to the current administration…[However] the United States does not permit, tolerate or condone torture under any circumstances.
The United States has respected—and will continue to respect—the sovereignty of other countries.
The United States does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation under torture.
The United States does not use the airspace or the airports of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee to a country where he or she will be tortured.
The United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured. Where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred people will not be tortured.
While Rice has denied that the CIA used torture, she refused to address the allegations of covert prisons that have caused consternation across Europe and not least in Romania.[30][31][32]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Physicians Committee for Human Rights and Veterans for America have sought access to presidential directives expressly authorizing extraordinary rendition.[33] A story published in The NewStandard in December 2005 notes:
To date, there have been no Congressional or other governmental inquiries into the CIA's use of extraordinary renditions, despite repeated calls for such investigations.[34]
[edit]Torture
Further information: Torture and Ethical arguments regarding torture
Some proponents of extraordinary rendition, and the similarly controversial concept of unlawful combatant, agree with Alan Dershowitz that torturing terror suspects, however distasteful, is necessary to help prevent further terrorist attacks, which may only be a matter of hours or days away. [35] Critics argue, however, that such practices are unethical, unconstitutional, and defy the Geneva Conventions. Even within the US government, opinions are divided; the State Department opposes ignoring the Geneva Conventions, and has warned the Bush administration that not only could US soldiers be denied protection of the conventions but that President Bush and other members of the administration could also be prosecuted for war crimes.[citation needed]
Aside from ethical issues, pragmatic reservations have also arisen about the practice. For one, it appears that while torturing a suspect frequently results in a confession, the confessions tend to be useless; many suspects will say nearly anything to end their suffering. Some investigators argue that better results are achieved by treating suspects with respect, allowing them due process, and arranging plea bargains with defense lawyers.
[edit]Investigations |
