Arar #4

1. From another Washington Post story on the Arar case, from November 5, 2003:

Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Arar case fits the profile of a covert CIA "extraordinary rendition" -- the practice of turning over low-level, suspected terrorists to foreign intelligence services, some of which are known to torture prisoners....

A senior U.S. intelligence official discussed the case in terms of the secret rendition policy. There have been "a lot of rendition activities" since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, the official said. "We are doing a number of them, and they have been very productive."

Renditions are a legitimate option for dealing with suspected terrorists, intelligence officials argue. The U.S. government officially rejects the assertion that it knowingly sends suspects abroad to be tortured, but officials admit they sometimes do that. "The temptation is to have these folks in other hands because they have different standards," one official said. "Someone might be able to get information we can't from detainees," said another.

I don't have much to add here, except to say that "extraordinary rendition" is one hell of a euphemism.

2. I said in my last post that it was reassuring as well as disturbing that the Deputy Attorney General signed off on this, because requiring approval that high up suggested this was not routine. But then I remembered this part of Arar's statement:

The Canadian consul came on Oct. 4, and I told her I was scared of being deported to Syria. She told me that would not happen. She told me that a lawyer was being arranged. I was very upset, and scared. I could barely talk.

The next day, a lawyer came. She told me not to sign any document unless she was present. We could only talk for 30 minutes. She said she would try to help me. That was a Saturday.

On Sunday night at about 9 p.m., the guards came to my cell and told me my lawyer was there to see me. I thought it was a strange time, and they took me into a room with seven or eight people in it.

I asked where my lawyer was. They told me he had refused to come and started questioning me again.

They said they wanted to know why I did not want to go back to Syria. I told them I would be tortured there. I told them I had not done my military service; I am a Sunni Muslim; my mother’s cousin had been accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and was put in prison for nine years.

They asked me to sign a document and I refused. I told them they could not send me to Syria - I would be tortured.

I asked again for a lawyer. At three in the morning they took me back to my cell.

It is illegal*, under international law and U.S. regulations, to "expel, return ('refouler') or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture."

But I would guess that most people who are "extraordinarily rendered" would not have spoken to a government consul or an attorney, and might not specifically say "they will torture me if you send me back." That may be why the Deputy Attorney General had to sign off on it; it may not be a routine step before a suspect is deported to a country that practices torture.

*link via TalkLeft

Comments

[von]

Let me just say a "hurrah" for all this Arar-blogging, Katherine. Good stuff.

[Banjo-Kazooie]

Can't remember whose blog I saw this on -

Yet George W. Bush tells New Yorker writer Ken Auletta: "No President has ever done more for human rights than I have."