17.6.10
To complement my recent article, “UN Human Rights Council Discusses Secret Detention Report,” in which I explained how, two weeks ago, the UN Human Rights Council had — after some delays — finally discussed the findings of the “Joint Study on Global Practices in Relation to Secret Detention in the Context of Counter-Terrorism,” a detailed, 186-page report issued in February (PDF), I’m posting the section of the report that deals with US secret detention policies since the 9/11 attacks, in the hope that it might reach a new audience — and provide useful research opportunities — as an HTML document.
I do, however, urge everyone to read the whole report, because the introduction and conclusions are important, as are the sections establishing the legal approach to secret detention and its historical context, the section detailing current practices in 25 other countries worldwide, and the annexes, which contain government responses to a questionnaire about secret detention, and a number of case studies.
Given the length of this section of the report (pp. 43-89), I’m publishing it in three parts. The first, published here, provided an introduction, and dealt with “The ‘high-value detainee’ programme and CIA secret detention facilities,” the second looked at “CIA detention facilities or facilities operated jointly with United States military in battlefield zones,” and the third, published below, looks at “Proxy detention sites,” “Complicity in the practice of secret detention” and “Secret detention and the Obama administration.”
Please note that I have inserted hyperlinks where possible. However, the original report contains footnotes, and not all of these provide links to websites. In most cases, I have added the information contained in the footnotes in square brackets, but for full details, please see the original.
Prepared by Martin Scheinin, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Manfred Nowak, the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Shaheen Ali, the vice-chair of the Working Group on arbitrary detention, and Jeremy Sarkin, the chair of the Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances.
C. Proxy detention sites
141. Since 2005, details have emerged of how the United States was not only secretly capturing, transferring and detaining people itself, but also transferring people to other States for the purpose of interrogation or detention without charge. The practice had apparently started almost simultaneously with the high-value detainee programme. The British Government transmitted to the experts a summary of conclusions and recommendations of the Intelligence and Security Committee report on rendition (2007), in which it was noted that “the Security Service and SIS were … slow to detect the emerging pattern of “renditions to detention” that occurred during 2002” [The summary was sent in response to a questionnaire on allegations of rendition and detention sent by the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, dated 8 July 2009]. The CIA appears to have been generally involved in the capture and transfer of prisoners, as well as in providing questions for those held in foreign prisons. Beyond that, a clear pattern is difficult to discern: some prisoners were subsequently returned to CIA custody (and were generally sent on to Guantanamo), while others were sent back to their home countries, or remained in the custody of the authorities in third countries.
142. The Government of the United States has acknowledged that “some enemy combatants have been transferred to their countries of nationality for continued detention” [E/CN.4/2004/3, para. 69]. In its report to the Committee against Torture on 13 January 2006, the Government attempted to deflect criticism of its policy of sending detainees to countries with poor human rights records, including those where they might face the risk of torture, declaring that “the United States does not transfer persons to countries where the United States believes it is ‘more likely than not’ that they will be tortured … The United States obtains assurances, as appropriate, from the foreign government to which a detainee is transferred that it will not torture the individual being transferred” [CAT/C/48/Add.3/Rev.1, para. 30. See also the reply of the Government to a general allegation regarding the its involvement in one case of extraordinary rendition transmitted by the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, in which it affirmed that “the United States does not transport individuals from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture. Furthermore, the United States has not transported individuals, and will not transport individuals to a country where the Government believes they will be tortured” (A/HRC/10/9, para. 425)]. Various United Nations bodies, including the experts and the Committee against Torture, have criticized heavily this policy of “extraordinary rendition” in a detailed way in the past, defining it as a clear violation of international law. They also expressed concern about the use of assurances [See A/HRC/6/17/Add.3, para. 36; A/HRC/4/40, paras. 43 and 50; E/CN.4/2004/3, para. 69; A/HRC/4/41, para. 458 and A/60/316, para. 45; CAT/C/USA/CO/2, paras. 20-21; and A/60/316, E/CN.4/2006/6 and A/HRC/4/40, paras. 52-56].
143. Given the prevailing secrecy regarding the CIA rendition programme, exact figures regarding the numbers of prisoners transferred to the custody of other Governments by the CIA without spending any time in CIA facilities are difficult to ascertain. Equally, little is known about the number of detainees who have been held at the request of other States, such as the United Kingdom and Canada. While several of these allegations cannot be backed up by other sources, the experts wish to underscore that the consistency of many of the detailed allegations provided separately by detainees adds weight to the inclusion of Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, the Syrian Arab Republic, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Djibouti as proxy detention facilities where detainees have been held on behalf of the CIA. Serious concerns also exist about the role of Uzbekistan as a proxy detention site.
1. Jordan
144. At least 15 prisoners, mostly seized in Karachi, Pakistan, or in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, claim to have been rendered by the CIA to the main headquarters of the General Intelligence Department of Jordan in Amman, between September 2001 and 2004. They include three men and one juvenile subsequently transferred to Guantanamo via Afghanistan:
145. Also held were Abu Hamza al-Tabuki, a Saudi seized by United States agents in Afghanistan in December 2001 and released in Saudi Arabia in late 2002 or early 2003, and Samer Helmi al-Barq, seized in Pakistan on 15 July 2003, who was kept for three months in a secret prison outside Pakistan, before being transferred to Jordan on 26 October 2003. He was released on bail in January 2008 [Others reportedly held in Jordan are Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, a Yemeni student rendered from Karachi on 23 October 2001, who has not been heard of since; Ibrahim al- Jeddawi, a Saudi seized in Yemen (or Kuwait) in the first half of 2002, who was reportedly transferred to Saudi custody; at least five other men (three Algerians, a Syrian and a Chechen), seized in Georgia in 2002; an Iraqi Kurd, possibly seized in Yemen; and a Tunisian, seized in Iraq. The current whereabouts of all these men is unknown. According to former prisoners interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, seized with Hassan bin Attash and one of 14 “high-value detainees” transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006, was also held in Jordan for an unspecified amount of time, as was Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, seized in Afghanistan in late 2001, who was subjected to multiple renditions. See also para. 146. For Samer Helmi al-Barq, see Amnesty International, submission to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review, February 2009 (PDF)].
2. Egypt
146. At least seven men were rendered to Egypt by the CIA between September 2001 and February 2003, and another was rendered to Egypt from the Syrian Arab Republic, where he had been seized at the request of the Canadian authorities:
The eighth man, Ahmad Abou El-Maati, a Canadian-Egyptian national, was seized at Damascus airport on his arrival from Toronto on 11 November 2001. He was held in the Far Falestin prison in the Syrian Arab Republic until 25 January 2002, when he was transferred to Egyptian custody, where he remained in various detention sites (including in secret detention until August 2002) until his release on 7 March 2004. During the initial period of his detention in Egypt, he was subjected to heavy beatings and threats of rape against his sister. At a later stage during the secret detention phase, he was handcuffed with his hands behind his back practically continuously for 45 days in a solitary confinement cell, which he described as being very painful and which made it hard to use the toilet and wash. He was also subjected to sleep deprivation [Internal inquiry into the actions of Canadian officials in relation to Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin, pursuant to an Order in Council dated 11 December 2006. See also Commission of inquiry into the actions of Canadian officials in relation to Maher Arar, report of the fact finder of 14 October 2005].
3. Syrian Arab Republic
147. At least nine detainees were rendered by the CIA to the Syrian Arab Republic between December 2001 and October 2002, and held in Far Falestin, run by Syrian Military Intelligence. All those able to speak about their experiences explained that they were tortured. As in the case of Egypt (see para. 146 above), other men were seized at the request of the Canadian authorities:
148. When Ahmad Abou El-Maati (see para. 146) was held in Far Falestin in the Syrian Arab Republic, he was held in solitary confinement in poor conditions and subjected to ill-treatment, including blindfolding, forced to remove almost all his clothes, beaten with cables, forcible shaving and had ice-cold water poured on him. Abdullah Almalki, a Canadian-Syrian national, also spent time in secret detention in the Syrian Arab Jamahiriya, in Far Falestin, from 3 May to 7 July 2002, when he received a family visit. On 25 August 2003, he was sent to Sednaya prison. He was released on 10 March 2004. He returned to Canada on 25 July 2004 after being acquitted of all charges by the Syrian State Supreme Security court [Internal inquiry, paras. 10-38].
149. Another Canadian, Muayyed Nureddin, an Iraqi-born geologist, was detained on the border of the Syrian Arab Republic and Iraq on 11 December 2002, when he returned from a family visit in northern Iraq. He was secretly detained for a month in Far Falestin, then released on 13 January 2003 [Internal inquiry, paras. 10-38].
150. In its response to the questionnaire sent by the experts, the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic stated that the country had no secret prisons or detention centres. There were no cases of secret detention, and no individuals had been arrested without the knowledge of the competent authorities. No authorization had been granted to the security service of any foreign State to establish secret detention facilities in the Syrian Arab Republic. A number of foreign individuals had been arrested in the country at the request of other States, and had been informed of the legal basis for the arrests and their places of detention. The above-mentioned States were also informed of whether the individuals concerned had been brought before the Courts or transferred outside of the country. Individuals belonging to different terrorist groups had been prosecuted and detained in public prisons, in compliance with relevant international standards. They would be judged by the competent judicial authorities. Court proceedings would be public and be held in the presence of defence lawyers, families, human rights activists and foreign diplomats. Some would be publicized through the media. The Interpol branch within the Security Service of the Ministry of the Interior was cooperating with international Interpol branches with regard to suspected terrorist and other criminal activities.
4. Morocco
151. At least three detainees were rendered to Morocco by the CIA between May and July 2002, and held in Temara prison, including the following:
5. Pakistan
152. From December 2001 until the summer of 2002, when the majority of the detainees who ended up in Guantanamo were seized, detention facilities in Pakistan, where several hundred detainees were held before being transferred to Kandahar or Bagram, were a crucial component of what was then, exclusively, a secret detention programme. Many of these men, seized near the Pakistani border, or while crossing from Afghanistan to Pakistan, were held in prisons in Kohat and Peshawar, but others were held in what appear to be impromptu facilities, which were established across the country in numerous locations. The then President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, stated that:
Since shortly after 9/11, when many Al-Qaida members fled Afghanistan and crossed the border into Pakistan, we have played multiple games of cat and mouse with them. The biggest of them all, Osama bin Laden, is still at large at the time of this writing, but we have caught many, many others. Some are known to the world, some are not. We have captured 672 and handed over 369 to the United States. We have earned bounties totalling millions of dollars [Pervez Musharraf, In The Line Of Fire: A Memoir, Free Press, 2006].
153. Two former prisoners, Moazzam Begg and Omar Deghayes, described their experiences of secret detention in Pakistan to the experts:
Omar Deghayes, a Libyan national and British resident, was arrested in April 2002 at his home in Lahore after a hundred people in black tracksuits surrounded the house. In the presence of an American officer, he was then taken, handcuffed and hooded, to a police station and, shortly afterwards, to an old fortress outside Lahore, where he was held with other men from Palestine, Tunisia, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Egypt, and beaten and kicked, and heard electroshocks and people screaming. According to his account, “the place was run by Pakistanis and appeared to be a maximum security prison for extremist opponents that were traded with different States such as Libya and the United States.” He also stated that he was tortured for a month without any contact with the external world, and that the ill-treatment included punching, beating, kicking, stripping, being hit in the back with wooden sticks, and stress positions for up to three days and three nights. In mid-May, two Americans in plain clothes visited, took photographs and asked questions. He was then moved to a place in Islamabad, which looked like a barracks, where he was held incommunicado for one month without access to a lawyer or ICRC, and was interrogated in a nearby house by American officers, who identified themselves as CIA, and, on one occasion, by a British agent from MI6. He said that torture took place in the barracks but not during the interrogations, and that he was subjected to drowning and stress positions, and recalled a room full of caged snakes that guards threatened to open if he did not speak about what he had done in Afghanistan. He then met with British and American officers, who finally “acquired” him with other detainees, and took him to Bagram, where he was heavily tortured and sexually abused by American soldiers. He was flown to Guantanamo in August 2002, and released in December 2007 [Interview with Omar Deghayes (annex II, case 8)].
Moazzam Begg, a British citizen, moved to Kabul, with his wife and three children, to become a teacher and a charity worker in 2001. After leaving Afghanistan in the wake of the United States-led invasion, on 31 January 2002, he was abducted from a house in Islamabad, where he was living with his family, and taken to a place in Islamabad (not an official detention facility), where those who held him were not uniformed officers and there were people held in isolation. Held for three weeks, he was moved to a different venue for interviews with American and British intelligence officers, but his wife did not know where he had been taken, and he was denied access to a lawyer or consular services. He was then taken to a military airport near Islamabad and handed over to American officers. He was held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo for three years, and was released in January 2005 [Interview with Moazzam Begg (annex II, case 6)].
6. Ethiopia
154. The Government of Ethiopia served as the detaining authority for foreign nationals of interest to United States and possibly other foreign intelligence officers between 30 December 2006 and February 2007 [For allegations in interviews conducted by Federal Bureau of Investigation officers, see for example the case of Meshal vs Higgenbotham. See also Human Rights Watch, “Why am I still here?: the 2007 Horn of Africa renditions and the fate of those still missing” (PDF)]. On 2 May 2007, a number of special procedures addressed the Government of Ethiopia, adding the following details:
In December 2006, the conflict between the militias of the Council of Somali Islamic Courts and the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, supported by armed forces of Ethiopia, caused a large flow of refugees seeking to cross the border from Somalia into Kenya. On 2 January 2007, Kenyan authorities announced the closure of the border for security reasons. Since then, it is reported that the Kenyan security forces have been patrolling the border and have arrested a number of those seeking to cross it. Kenya has deported at least 84 of those arrested back to Somalia, from where they were taken to Ethiopia [A/HRC/7/3/Add.1, para. 71].
155. The experts interviewed two of those captured between December 2006 and February 2007: Bashir Ahmed Makhtal (mentioned in the Special Rapporteur’s communication) and Mohamed Ezzoueck. The latter, a British national, was detained on 20 January 2007 in Kiunga village, Kenya, after crossing the Somali-Kenyan border and then transferred to Nairobi, where he was held in three different locations. Mr. Ezzoueck reported having been detained in Kenya for about three weeks and then transferred to Somalia, where he was held for a few days before being transferred, via Nairobi, back to London. According to his testimony, he was interrogated by a Kenyan army major and Kenyan intelligence service officers, FBI officers and British security services officers, and repeatedly asked about his involvement with terrorist groups, including Al Qaida [Interview with Mohamed Ezzouek (annex II, case 10)]. Mr. Makhtal, an Ethiopian-born Canadian, was arrested on the border between Kenya and Somalia on 30 December 2006 by intelligence agents and held at a police detention centre. He was subsequently transferred by car to a prison cell in Gigiri police station in Nairobi. On 21 January 2007, the Kenyan authorities sent him to Mogadishu. On the following day, he was taken to Addis Ababa by an Ethiopian military plane. He was then held for approximately 18 months incommunicado in Mekalawi federal prison, often in solitary confinement and in poor conditions, then ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment by the High Court of Ethiopia [Interview with Bashir Makhtal (annex II, case 16)].
156. In a letter dated 23 May 2007, the Government of Ethiopia informed the relevant special procedures mandate holders that the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia had handed over to Ethiopia 41 individuals captured in the course of the conflict in Somalia; most of these detainees had been released. Only eight of the detainees remained in custody by order of the court. The Government also noted that “the allegation that there are more than seventy others in addition to those named in the communication is false, as are the allegations that the detainees are held incommunicado, and that they might be at risk of torture” [A/HRC/7/3/Add.1, para. 71]. However, in September 2008, Human Rights Watch published a report stating that at least 10 detainees were still in Ethiopian custody, and the whereabouts of others were unknown [PDF].
7. Djibouti
157. The experts received information proving that a detainee in the CIA secret detention programme, Mohammed al-Asad, had been transferred by Tanzanian officials by plane to Djibouti on 27 December 2003 [High Court of Tanzania at Dar es Salaam, criminal application No. 23 of 2004, Abdullah Salehe Mohsen al-Asad vs. Director of Immigration Services ex parte Mohamed Abdullah Salehe Mohsen Al-Asaad counter affidavit, 30 June 2004]. In Djibouti, Mr. al-Asad was detained for two weeks in secret detention, where he was interrogated by a white English-speaking woman and a male interpreter, mostly on his connections to the al-Haramain foundation. The woman identified herself as American. Mr. al-Asad’s own recollection is consistent with his having been held in Djibouti. One of his guards told him that he was in Djibouti and there was a photograph of President Guelleh on the wall of the detention facility. After approximately two weeks, Mr. al-Asad was taken to an airport in Djibouti, where a team of individuals dressed entirely in black stripped him, inserted an object in his rectum, diapered and photographed him, and strapped him down in a plane. The detention site may have been in Camp Lemonier, which allegedly has been used on a short-term or transitory basis for several detainees being transferred to secret detention elsewhere.
8. Uzbekistan
158. No confirmation has ever been provided by either the Government of the United States or that of Uzbekistan that detainees were rendered to proxy prisons in Uzbekistan. In May 2005, however, the New York Times spoke to “a half-dozen current and former intelligence officials working in Europe, the Middle East and the United States” who stated that the United States had sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation. A United States intelligence official estimated that the number of terrorism suspects sent by the United States to Tashkent was in the dozens. The New York Times also obtained flight logs, showing that at least seven flights were made to Uzbekistan from early 2002 to late 2003” by two planes associated with the CIA rendition programme (a Gulfstream jet and a Boeing 737), and noted that, on 21 September 2003, both planes had arrived at Tashkent. According to the newspaper, the flight logs showed that “the Gulfstream had taken off from Baghdad, while the 737 had departed from the Czech Republic”. On 14 August 2009, the BBC interviewed Ikrom Yakubov, an Uzbek intelligence officer who has been granted political asylum in the United Kingdom, who stated that the United States had rendered terrorist suspects for questioning to Uzbekistan, but added, “I don’t want to talk about it as there might be serious concerns for my life in the future to discuss renditions.” On 22 August 2009, the story resurfaced once more, when Der Spiegel reported that, in an arrangement between the private security firm Blackwater and the CIA, Blackwater and its subsidiaries had been commissioned “to transport terror suspects from Guantanamo to interrogations at secret prison camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan”.
D. Complicity in the practice of secret detention
159. After September 2006, the direct role of the CIA in secret detentions seemed to have shrunk significantly, with “current and former American Government officials” explaining in May 2009 to the New York Times that, in the last two years of the Bush administration, the Government of the United States had started to rely heavily on the foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the newspaper, “in the past 10 months, … about a half-dozen mid-level financiers and logistics experts working with Al-Qaida have been captured and are being held by intelligence services in four Middle Eastern countries after the United States provided information that led to their arrests by local security services”. Instead of actively detaining persons in secret, the United States — and many other countries — became complicit in the practice of secret detention. For the purposes of the present study, the experts state that a country is complicit in the secret detention of a person in the following cases:
(a) When a State has asked another State to secretly detain a person (covering all cases mentioned in paras. 141-158 above);
(b) When a State knowingly takes advantage of the situation of secret detention by sending questions to the State detaining the person or by soliciting or receiving information from persons who are being kept in secret detention. This includes at least the following States:
(c) When a State has actively participated in the arrest and/or transfer of a person when it knew, or ought to have known, that the person would disappear in a secret detention facility or otherwise be detained outside the legally regulated detention system. This includes at least the following States:
(d) A specific form of complicity in this context are these cases where a State holds a person shortly in secret detention before handing them over to another State where that person will be put in secret detention for a longer period. This includes at least the following countries:
(e) When a State has failed to take measures to identify persons or airplanes passing through its airports or airspace after information of the CIA programme involving secret detention had already been revealed. The issue of rendition flights was, and still is, the subject of many separate investigations at the national or regional level. Therefore, the experts decided to refrain from going into the details of this issue [See, inter alia, the European Parliament Committee report, 18 June 2009 (PDF); the statement of the Foreign Secretary to the House of Commons on United States rendition flights, 21 February 2008, and Dick Marty,”Secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states: second report” (PDF)].
E. Secret detention and the Obama administration
160. In its response to the questionnaire sent by the experts, the United States stated that:
The Obama Administration has adopted the following specific measures:
These measures cumulatively seek to reaffirm the importance of compliance with the rule of law in U.S. detention practices, to ensure U.S. adherence to its international legal obligations, and to promote accountability and transparency in this important area of national security policy.
161. The experts welcome the above commitments. They believe, however, that clarification is required as to whether detainees were held in CIA “black sites” in Iraq and Afghanistan or elsewhere when President Obama took office, and, if so, what happened to the detainees who were held at that time. Also, the experts are concerned that the executive order instructing the CIA “to close any detention facilities that it currently operates” does not extend to the facilities where the CIA detains individuals on “a short-term transitory basis”. The order also does not seem to extend to detention facilities operated by the Joint Special Operation Command.
162. The experts also welcome in particular the new policy implemented in August 2009, under which the military must notify ICRC of detainees’ names and identification number within two weeks of capture. Nevertheless, there is no legal justification for this two-week period of secret detention. According to article 70 of the Third Geneva Convention, prisoners of war are to be documented, and their whereabouts and health conditions made available to family members and to the country of origin of the prisoner within one week. Article 106 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (governing the treatment of civilians) establishes virtually identical procedures for the documentation and disclosure of information concerning civilian detainees. Furthermore, it is obvious that this unacknowledged detention for one week can only be applied to persons who have been captured on the battlefield in a situation of armed conflict. This is an important observation, as the experts noted with concern news reports quoting current Government officials saying that “the importance of Bagram as a holding site for terrorism suspects captured outside Afghanistan and Iraq has risen under the Obama administration, which barred the Central Intelligence Agency from using its secret prisons for long-term detention”.
163. The situation at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility remains of great concern. In March 2009, United States district Court Judge John D. Bates ruled that the habeas corpus rights granted to the Guantanamo detainees by the Supreme Court in June 2008 extended to non-Afghan detainees who had been seized in other countries and rendered to Bagram because “the detainees themselves as well as the rationale for detention are essentially the same”, and because the review process established at the prison “falls well short of what the Supreme Court found inadequate at Guantánamo”. The four petitioners were among the 94 prisoners that Assistant Attorney General Stephen G. Bradbury admitted were held in CIA custody between 2001 and 2005. Judge Bates found that, in holding detainees at Bagram not as prisoners of war but as “unlawful enemy combatants”, the Bush administration had put in place a review process, the Unlawful Enemy Combatant Review Board, in which “detainees cannot even speak for themselves; they are only permitted to submit a written statement. But in submitting that statement, detainees do not know what evidence the United States relies upon to justify an ‘enemy combatant’ designation — so they lack a meaningful opportunity to rebut that evidence”.
164. The above-mentioned ruling has been appealed by the current United States administration, even though Judge Bates noted that habeas rights extend neither to Afghan detainees held at Bagram, nor to Afghans seized in other countries and rendered to Bagram. In its appeal against Judge Bates’ ruling, the United States administration notified the court that it was introducing a new review process at Bagram, “modifying the procedures for reviewing the status of aliens held by the Department of Defense at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility” [PDF]. However, the experts are concerned that the new review system fails to address the fact that detainees in an active war zone should be held according to the Geneva Conventions, screened close to the time and place of capture if there is any doubt about their status, and not be subjected to reviews at some point after their capture to determine whether they should continue to be held. The experts are also concerned that the system appears to aim specifically to prevent United States courts from having access to foreign detainees captured in other countries and rendered to Bagram. While the experts welcome the fact that the names of 645 detainees at Bagram are now known, they urge the Government of the United States to provide information on the citizenship, length of detention and place of capture of all detainees currently held at Bagram Air Base.
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in January 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, currently on tour in the UK, and available on DVD here), and my definitive Guantánamo habeas list, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.
See here for the Bagram prisoner list. For a sequence of articles discussing the use of torture in secret prisons, see: Rendered to Egypt for torture, Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni is released from Guantánamo (September 2008), A History of Music Torture in the “War on Terror” (December 2008), Seven Years of Torture: Binyam Mohamed Tells His Story (March 2009), Ten Terrible Truths About The CIA Torture Memos (Part One), Ten Terrible Truths About The CIA Torture Memos (Part Two) (April 2009), Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi Has Died In A Libyan Prison (May 2009), WORLD EXCLUSIVE: New Revelations About The Torture Of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (June 2009), What The British Government Knew About The Torture Of Binyam Mohamed (August 2009), UK Judges Order Release Of Details About The Torture Of Binyam Mohamed By US Agents (October 2009), Dark Revelations in the Bagram Prisoner List (January 2010), UN Secret Detention Report Asks, “Where Are The CIA Ghost Prisoners?” (January 2010), Mohamedou Ould Salahi: How a Judge Demolished the US Government’s Al-Qaeda Claims (April 2010), Judge Rules Yemeni’s Detention at Guantánamo Based Solely on Torture (April 2010), and also see the extensive Binyam Mohamed archive.
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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37 Responses
U.N. Secret Detention Report « Little Alex in Wonderland says...
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[…] Circuit Court of Appeals (PDF), in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of five men subjected to "extraordinary rendition" and torture, is one such story. The men — Binyam Mohamed, Ahmed Agiza, Abou Elkassim Britel, […]
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The Progressive Mind » By One Vote, US Court OKs Torture and “Extraordinary Rendition” :: www.uruknet.info :: informazione dal medio oriente :: information from middle east :: [vs-5] says...
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Andy Worthington: By One Vote, U.S. Court OKs Torture and "Extraordinary Rendition" | BlackNewsTribune.com says...
[…] Circuit Court of Appeals (PDF), in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of five men subjected to “extraordinary rendition” and torture, is one such story. The men — Binyam Mohamed, Ahmed Agiza, Abou Elkassim Britel, […]
...on October 12th, 2010 at 3:46 am
Paul Siemering says...
Hey Andy
I was just reading your wikileaks story over at Justice for Affia and clicked this link.
So first of all I want to thank you for that piece, because it pulls together more loose strands of Aafia’s horror story, and for the heart and dedication we so love you for.
As for the U.N. Secret Detention report, I have not had time to read it yet but I’ll post another reply note when I do.
You are still the man Andy. Without the bright light you have been illuminating the crimes of u. s. imprisonments we’d be lost.
...on December 4th, 2010 at 2:44 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks, Paul. It’s been a while. Good to hear from you.
...on December 4th, 2010 at 11:58 am
WikiLeaks: Numerous Reasons to Dismiss US Claims that “Ghost Prisoner” Aafia Siddiqui Was Not Held in Bagram + Bring Aafia Home « Dandelion Salad says...
[…] Aafia Coalition, former Guantánamo prisoner Omar Deghayes stated that, as well as Binyam Mohamed, Hassan bin Attash (a former child prisoner who is still held in Guantánamo) and Dr. Ghairat Baheer (a former […]
...on December 6th, 2010 at 2:06 am
Revolution in Egypt – and the Hypocrisy of the US and the West « Dandelion Salad says...
[…] Jordan, Syria, and Morocco in its “War on Terror,” drawing on their expertise in torture to host secret torture prisons on behalf of the CIA, where dozens of men and boys — seized in other countries and subjected to […]
...on February 3rd, 2011 at 7:25 am
Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Reminds World Suleiman Personally Tortured Him « Eurasia Review says...
[…] As has also been noted, and as I explained in my articles Revolution in Egypt – and the Hypocrisy of the US and the West and As Egyptians Call for Mubarak’s Fall, He Appoints America’s Favorite Torturer as Vice President (in which I cross-posted an analysis of Suleiman’s torture history by Stephen Soldz), Suleiman played a crucial role in the unholy alliance between Egypt and the United States in the “War on Terror,” when an unknown number of prisoners, seized by the Americans, were rendered for torture in Egypt. […]
...on February 11th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
The Year of Revolution: The War on Tyranny Replaces the War on Terror « Dandelion Salad says...
[…] by establishing a global network of secret torture prisons, specifically utilizing the expertise of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Syria and Uzbekistan, and also establishing its own torture prisons in Thailand, Poland, Romania and Lithuania, and in […]
...on February 24th, 2011 at 3:43 am
The Year of Revolution: The “War on Tyranny” Replaces the “War on Terror” « Eurasia Review says...
[…] by establishing a global network of secret torture prisons, specifically utilizing the expertise of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Syria and Uzbekistan, and also establishing its own torture prisons in Thailand, Poland, Romania and Lithuania, and in […]
...on February 24th, 2011 at 9:19 am
Egypt: Some Progress On Release Of Political Prisoners Eurasia Review says...
[…] and disappearances,” Some, according to the Herald, were also looking for evidence relating to Egypt’s role in the Bush administration’s program of “extraordinary rendition” and torture, in which the government of Hosni Mubarak played a major part, and protesters carted off armloads […]
...on March 8th, 2011 at 11:02 am
Brave Protestors In Syria Call For Freedom « Eurasia Review says...
[…] life (as did other Canadian citizens picked up and tortured on behalf of the Canadian government), at least ten other prisoners, including teenagers, who were rendered to Syria by the CIA, mostly from Pakistan, and mostly in […]
...on March 16th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
Syria: Amazingly, The Next Crucible of Revolution in the Middle East? – OpEd « Eurasia Review says...
[…] Syria: Amazingly, The Next Crucible of Revolution in the Middle East? – OpEd Written by: Andy Worthington var addthis_product = 'wpp-254'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};Last week I wrote an article about the unexpected awakening of popular unrest in Syria, when an unprecedented “Day of Rage” against the Ba’athist dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad was called by protestors in Damascus, and was followed the day after by another protest in which respected opposition figures — both Arabs and Kurds — called for the release of 21 political prisoners out of the many thousands of “prisoners of conscience” held in Syria’s notorious prisons. These include Far Falestin in Damascus, whose reputation for torture was such that, when George W. Bush and his close advisors were looking for countries where men and boys seized in the “War on Terror” could be tortured, Syria was chosen, along with Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. […]
...on March 24th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Las raíces de la revolución en Siria | Amauta says...
[…] Unidas sobre los centros secretos de detención que se publicó el pasado año (PDF, véase aquí una muestra representativa de la sección donde se recoge la situación en Siria). Esta fue sólo […]
...on April 26th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Study Says Doctors At Guantánamo Neglected Or Concealed Evidence of Torture, Plus My Interview With Press TV – OpEd « « Eurasia Review Eurasia Review says...
[…] countries to be tortured before they were sent to Guantánamo. This is something that’s been very obvious from research over the years, but it’s not something that the Bush administration ever accepted had […]
...on April 30th, 2011 at 10:13 am
WikiLeaks And The 22 Children Of Guantanamo says...
[…] to torture and abuse, as described by many of these prisoners, “extraordinary rendition” to a torture prison in Jordan in the case of one of the juveniles, Hassan bin Attash, and, in the case of Omar Khadr, a war […]
...on June 22nd, 2011 at 6:16 am
ARTICLE: “How the Abu Salim Prison Massacre in 1996 Inspired the Revolution in Libya” ‹ Libyan Council of North America says...
[…] In Egypt, a similar trigger was the cold-blooded murder, in a street in Alexandria last June, of Khaled Said, a 28-year old businessman from Alexandria, who was beaten to death by the police after they dragged him onto the street from an internet café. Said’s murder led to the creation of an Internet campaign — for justice, essentially — in his name (We Are All Khaled Said), and, as I explained in my article last month, I considered that: [A]lthough brutality was widespread in Tunisia too, it is appropriate that the Egyptian people are holding the memory of a victim of the state’s appalling violence as an inspiration, because Mubarak’s brutality — exercised in Egypt’s torture prisons, as well as in casual homicides like that of Khaled Said — is not only an emblem of Egypt over the last 30 years, but also reflects on wider issues that have, indirectly, dominated my life for the last five years since I beganresearching and writing about Guantánamo and the Bush administration’s “War on Terror”: the hypocrisy of the West (and, in particular, the United States), which funds Mubarak’s repressive regime (to the tune of $1.3 billion a year), and which made Egypt central to the “War on Terror,” its vile torture prisons the first port of call for victims of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program. […]
...on June 28th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
WikiLeaks and the Guantánamo Prisoners Released from 2002 to 2004 (All Ten Parts) – Andy Worthington « freedetainees.org says...
[…] […]
...on August 27th, 2011 at 12:37 am
Syrien / USA: Wenn aus dem alten Folter-Freund der neue Menschenrechts-Feind wird « Ticker says...
[…] […]
...on February 9th, 2012 at 7:01 am
America’s Disappeared: US State Terrorism | Hebrew Vision News says...
[…] an unspecified number of other prisoners were also rendered to other countries for torture, including Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The only estimate of numbers came in September […]
...on February 28th, 2013 at 10:46 pm
freedetainees.org – The Suspicious Arrest of Former Guantánamo Prisoner Moazzam Begg says...
[…] 2010, I reported the stories of nine men held and tortured in Syria — including two Canadian citizens, Maher Arar and Abdullah Almalki — for a major United Nations […]
...on February 27th, 2014 at 4:43 am
By One Vote, US Court OKs Torture and “Extraordinary Rendition” | Dandelion Salad says...
[…] Circuit Court of Appeals (PDF), in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of five men subjected to “extraordinary rendition” and torture, is one such story. The men — Binyam Mohamed, Ahmed Agiza, Abou Elkassim Britel, […]
...on August 15th, 2014 at 4:02 am
WikiLeaks Reveals Secret Guantánamo Files, Exposes Detention Policy as a Construct of Lies | Dandelion Salad says...
[…] 2002, and is described as “an al-Qaeda facilitator.” After his capture, he was transferred to a torture prison in Jordan run on behalf of the CIA, where he was held for nearly two years, and was then held for six months […]
...on September 11th, 2014 at 11:02 pm
freedetainees.org – Op-Ed: Charges Against Moazzam Begg Dropped; Why Was He Ever Held In First Place? says...
[…] had indeed visited Syria, but had been in search of information relating to the US torture program that the Syrian government undertook on America’s behalf from 2002 onwards. Moreover, after his first visit in the summer of 2012, and before his second and […]
...on October 3rd, 2014 at 11:06 am
Extraordinary rendition: UK Government denial strategy in tatters | UndercoverInfo says...
[…] national and British resident, who was arrested in April 2002 at his home in Lahore. According to a 2010 UN report he was arrested and abused in Pakistan and later taken by British and US officers, who transported […]
...on December 31st, 2014 at 12:56 pm
Rendition/torture: documents, memo and ruling expose UK Govt role as more cases line up | UndercoverInfo says...
[…] national and British resident, who was arrested in April 2002 at his home in Lahore. According to a 2010 UN report he was arrested and abused in Pakistan and later taken by British and US officers, who transported […]
...on January 24th, 2015 at 2:51 pm
Barbaric: 86-Year Sentence for Aafia Siddiqui – Justice for Aafia Coalition says...
[…] some of these prisoners ended up in Guantánamo, and others were stealthily delivered on one-way trips to prisons in their home countries, Aafia ended up in New York, rendered — there is no other word — from Afghanistan. And although […]
...on February 11th, 2016 at 8:26 pm
the doomfall of Jokowi’s tyrannical men & lap dogs | the1uploader says...
[…] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/17/italy.g8 Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Syria and Uzbekistan http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/06/17/un-secret-detention-report-part-three-proxy-detention-ot… Thailand, Poland, Romania and Lithuania […]
...on June 8th, 2019 at 2:37 pm
America’s Disappeared by Andy Worthington – Dandelion Salad says...
[…] an unspecified number of other prisoners were also rendered to other countries for torture, including Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The only estimate of numbers came in September […]
...on June 23rd, 2023 at 11:26 pm
Guantánamo – Salvatore Bulgarella says...
[…] descritto da molti di questi prigionieri, “consegne straordinarie” in una prigione di tortura in Giordania nel caso di uno dei minorenni, Hassan bin Attash, e, nel caso di Omar Khadr, un processo per […]
...on January 20th, 2024 at 3:54 pm