by Katherine
Maher Arar remains, officially, too dangerous to fly over U.S. air space.
U.S. officials won't say what the sources of information against him are. I have a guess as to some of them. I've posted it before, but it's not widely known enough, so here's one more vain effort.
by Katherine
Von notes below that Syrian intelligence forces beat Maher Arar into falsely confessing that he had received terrorist training in Afghanistan. It's actually worse than that. Arar wasn't just tortured into a false confession in a Syrian prison. He also seems to have been sent to be tortured in Palestine Branch partly because of false confessions that two other Canadian citizens made under torture in the same prison.
Their names are Ahmad Abou El-Maati and Abdullah Almalki. Unlike Arar, they both traveled to Syria voluntarily. El-Maati flew to Damascus for an arranged marriage in November 2001. Almalki went there to visit relatives in May 2002. Both were arrested by Syrian intelligence forces when they arrived at the Damascus airport, and taken to a prison called the Palestine Branch. Both have since been released, returned to Canada, and given detailed chronologies of their experiences in Syria to their lawyers. (Here is a PDF of El-Maati's chronology; here is a PDF of Almalki's).
Continue reading ""They told him yes, he could invent a story"" »
by hilzoy
Maher Arar's case has been dismissed. You can read Katherine's summary of the case here, a press release from Arar's attorneys here, and the decision itself here (pdf).
I've read the decision, but do not feel competent to address the legal issues it raises. (Most of them involve things like jurisdiction and standing.) However, there is one point on which I disagree strongly with the Court. Apparently, one of the counts could have proceeded had the Court not found that the national security questions it raises require that it be deferred to Congress or the executive. The courts, according to the decision, lack the foreign policy expertise to decide such questions, and therefore they should be left to the "political branches" of the government.
I think this is just wrong. Article VI of the Constitution states that "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby". We have entered into the Convention Against Torture. Article III of that Convention states that "No State Party shall 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." There are very substantial grounds for believing that someone rendered to Syria, as Arar was, would be tortured, even leaving aside the possibility that we asked the Syrians to torture him. We have therefore violated one of those treaties which are, according to the Constitution, the law of the land.
This means that the extradition of Maher Arar is a violation of the law. It may also have foreign policy implications, but it does not thereby cease to be a violation of the law. And while conducting foreign policy may not fall within normal judicial expertise, reading laws, and determining whether the facts in evidence warrant conviction under them, is exactly what judges do. If determining when conduct violates a law and when it does not does not fall within their purview, I have no idea why on earth we bother to have them.
Moreover, while the Court argues that Congress has not addressed the issue of extraordinary rendition, I would have thought that it did so by ratifying the Convention Against Torture, thereby making it the law of the land.
The only way I can see of holding that Maher Arar's detention should not be justiciable is to say that when something is both (a) a violation of law and (b) significant for foreign policy, its foreign policy significance should trump its illegality. But this would be crazy. Do we really want to say that whenever foreign policy is in any way involved, our laws cease to apply? That whatever our officials do that relates to foreign policy is therefore immune to legal scrutiny? I don't.
The Court also makes much of various prudential arguments against the courts' considering issues that bear on foreign policy. But there are, I think, compelling prudential arguments on the other side as well. For one thing, treaties are not just vague gestures in the general direction of an intention; they are legally binding documents, and should be treated as such. When a treaty specifically outlaws certain forms of conduct, and our government engages in them anyways, our word as a nation is at stake. It would be nice to think that no administration would ever choose to ignore treaties, but Maher Arar's case is itself evidence that sometimes they do.
If there is no way of holding officials accountable under treaties (which almost by definition involve "foreign policy considerations"), then nothing prevents administrations from treating treaties as worthless scraps of paper. There are, it seems to me, very strong prudential arguments against allowing this to happen. And the courts would not be intruding where they do not belong: as I've said, according to the Constitution, treaties are law, and so in adopting a treaty, the Congress is making the conduct they preclude the courts' business.
That someone on a stopover in an airport can be detained by our government, sent to Syria to be tortured, held for ten months, and be left without any legal recourse is unconscionable. Coming just after the Abu Ghraib photos, it leaves me speechless.
by Katherine
It was almost two years ago that I asked the question, "How Extraordinary is Extraordinary Rendition?"; whether what was unusual about the U.S. sending Maher Arar to be tortured in Syria without any real evidence that he was a terrorist was that it happened, or that we knew about it. The answer seems to be "that we knew about it." As Hilzoy noted below, the Washington Post reported Sunday that the CIA is investigating up to 36 "erroneous renditions".
So. Who are these men? We know of at least two: Maher Arar and Khaled el-Masri (whose case is decribed in the Post article). Who else?
I don’t know what standard they use to declare a rendition erroneous—whether the suspect needs to affirmatively show innocence, or merely that he does not produce "actionable intelligence" and there is no evidence against him other than his own or someone else's confessions under torture. There are also many cases where I have no real idea about the suspect’s guilt or innocence. So the CIA could be including some of the other renditions that have been publicly reported in that total.
But I have followed this subject very closely, and I definitely do not know about three dozen renditions that a CIA officer would be likely to describe as "erroneous." Nowhere even close to that.
And where are these men? It is possible that some of them were released, but neither they nor their family has ever spoken to the press or a human rights organization. In the cases that we do know of, there is often a fairly long delay between the suspect’s release & his speaking to the press or the public, so it is possible that some may choose never to do this at all. Perhaps that is even a condition of their release from custody. But does that describe 25 or 30 of them? I doubt it. I really doubt it.
Of the 20-odd renditions that I do know of, a very small number of people have been freed: Maher Arar, Mamdouh Habib and Khaled el-Masri. That’s it. Muhammad al-Zery was reportedly released from an Egyptian prison but remains under surveillance and cannot leave the country or speak freely about what happened to him. The rest remain in prison—whether it’s Guantanamo, some CIA detention site, or foreign custody. We know from reading Priest’s description of el-Masri’s case that the discovery of a suspect’s innocence does not necessarily immediately lead to his release. And Khaled el-Masri is a German citizen. Mamdouh Habib is Australian. Maher Arar is Canadian. It is not a coincidence that the men released are citizens of wealthy, Western democracies that are U.S. allies.
Based on all of this, I would guess that most of the thirty-odd prisoners who were “erroneously rendered” are still in prison somewhere. I would also guess that some of them are still being subjected to torture right now.
But this won’t end when they stop being tortured, or when they are released from prison. Not for them.
by hilzoy
From Newsweek:
"An FBI agent warned superiors in a memo three years ago that U.S. officials who discussed plans to ship terror suspects to foreign nations that practice torture could be prosecuted for conspiring to violate U.S. law, according to a copy of the memo obtained by NEWSWEEK. (...)In a memo forwarded to a senior FBI lawyer on Nov. 27, 2002, a supervisory special agent from the bureau's behavioral analysis unit offered a legal analysis of interrogation techniques that had been approved by Pentagon officials for use against a high-value Qaeda detainee. After objecting to techniques such as exploiting "phobias" like "the fear of dogs" or dripping water "to induce the misperception of drowning," the agent discussed a plan to send the detainee to Jordan, Egypt or an unspecified third country for interrogation. "In as much as the intent of this category is to utilize, outside the U.S., interrogation techniques which would violate [U.S. law] if committed in the U.S., it is a per se violation of the U.S. Torture Statute," the agent wrote. "Discussing any plan which includes this category could be seen as a con-spiracy to violate [the Torture Statute]" and "would inculpate" everyone involved.
A senior FBI official, who asked not to be identified because the issue is sensitive, said the memo was not an official bureau legal conclusion. (...) But another senior U.S. law-enforcement official familiar with the memo, who also asked not to be identified, said the memo reflects concerns among many agents and lawyers about "rendition." Intel officials estimate that more than 100 terror suspects have been rendered to foreign countries by the CIA under a classified directive signed by President George W. Bush after 9/11."
No surprises here either, although the extent to which this administration seems to have been determined to disregard the advice of anyone who disagrees with them is, as always, mind-boggling. But mind-boggling things are not necessarily surprising, these days.
by hilzoy
In the course of a somewhat frustrating NYTimes article on what he calls 'Torture Lite', Joseph Lelyveld writes this:
"It has been more than a year now since we (and, of course, the region in which we presume to be crusading for freedom) were shown a selection of snapshots from Abu Ghraib with their depraved staging of hooded figures, snarling dogs and stacked naked bodies. For all the genuine outrage in predictable places over what was soon being called a ''torture scandal'' -- in legal forums, editorial pages, letters columns -- the usual democratic cleansing cycle never really got going. However strong the outcry, it wasn't enough to yield political results in the form of a determined Congressional investigation, let alone an independent commission of inquiry; the Pentagon's own inquiries, which exonerated its civilian and political leadership, told us a good deal more than most Americans, so it would appear, felt they needed to know. Members of Congress say they receive a negligible number of letters and calls about the revelations that keep coming. ''You asked whether they want it clear or want it blurry,'' Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said to me about the reaction of her constituents to the torture allegations that alarm her. ''I think they want it blurry.'' "
"Wanting it clear" means wanting an honest, open debate about what we want interrogators to do in our name. In the course of that debate, those who favor torture would have a chance to make their case. Is it useful in interrogations? Do ticking time bomb scenarios actually occur, and if so, how often? How much actionable intelligence have our "stress positions" and our "Fear Up Harsh" and "Pride and Ego Down" tactics actually yielded? Those who oppose torture would have a chance to ask: do these benefits, if they exist, outweigh the dangers of adopting a policy that seems to invite abuse? Do they create more terrorists than they allow us to capture or thwart? Have they made enemies of people who might have supported us? And are these methods consistent with our values as a nation, and with our noblest aspirations? When both sides had made their case, we could then decide openly what we want to do, and decide it as a nation.
"Wanting it blurry" means wanting to avoid that debate. It means caring less about considering the extremely serious issues at stake and getting them right than about being able to duck the uncomfortable knowledge that debating those issues might force on us. It means caring less about our country, its ideals, and its honor than about our own peace of mind, even when we have reason to think that that peace of mind might be undeserved. It means being willing to let taxi drivers whom we know to be innocent be beaten to death, detainees be sodomized with chemical lightsticks and have lit cigarettes stuck in their ears, and fourteen year olds be "suspended from hooks in the ceiling for hours at a time" while being beaten, in order to preserve the illusion that our own hands are clean.
Wanting it clear is for adults. Wanting it blurry is for children, who hope that problems they don't attend to will go away. And it is unworthy of citizens of a great democracy.
Susan Collins thinks that her constituents "want it blurry". Apparently, other members of Congress agree. As citizens of a democracy, we cannot react to this insulting idea by bemoaning the apathy of some unspecified group of other people. We are the people Collins is talking about, and it is up to us to prove her, and those who agree with her, wrong. So let's do it.
Here are links to the email addresses of your Senators and Representatives. Write them and let them know that you want things clear. For my part, I have done three things:
First, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings into detention at Guantanamo today. I wrote Senators Arlen Specter (the Chair) and Patrick Leahy (the ranking democrat) to thank them, and to urge them to hold more extensive hearings, so that we can fully debate all the issues raised by Guantanamo and come to considered conclusions.
Second, I wrote to ask my Senators to support S 654, and my Representative to support HR 952. Since none of my elected representatives has signed on as a sponsor of these bills, I asked each of them to do that as well. (If you click the links for each bill, you can find the lists of sponsors.)
S 654 and HR 952 are two similar bills, the first in the Senate and the second in the House. They would ban extraordinary rendition: sending people to other countries where we know they might be tortured: countries like Uzbekistan, Syria, and Egypt. (I wrote about HR 952 a few months ago.) If you need background on extraordinary rendition, you could read, well, any of Katherine's many posts about it on this blog, or this New Yorker article. It's an odious practice, and should be stopped. But both of these bills will die without more popular support. It is up to us not to let that happen.
Third, in all these emails I also wrote that I thought it was very important that the Congress conduct hearings on the following questions:
And I added that these hearings should be extensive, so that the important issues they raised could be fully debated.
What you write is, of course, up to you. But I'd urge you to write something, and to try to get others to do so as well. We all know why it matters. It's up to us to act on what we know.
by hilzoy
From the New York Times:
"Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."
Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the Bush administration turned to Uzbekistan as a partner in fighting global terrorism. The nation, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, granted the United States the use of a military base for fighting the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan. President Bush welcomed President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to the White House, and the United States has given Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border control and other security measures.
Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department."
More below the fold.
by hilzoy
Via email, Katherine the Sorely Missed tells me that Edward Markey has introduced a bill, H. R. 952, that would outlaw extraordinary rendition. Most readers of this blog are probably familiar with extraordinary rendition, but just in case: Katherine summarized the issues in an earlier post, in which she wrote: ""Extraordinary rendition" is the euphemism we use for sending terrorism suspects to countries that practice torture for interrogation. As one intelligence official described it in the Washington Post, "We don't kick the sh*t out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the sh*t out of them.” "
Markey's bill would require the Secretary of State to produce annually "a list of countries where there are substantial grounds for believing that torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment is commonly used in the detention of or interrogation of individuals." It would then prohibit the transfer of prisoners or detainees to any country on the most recent list, or to any other country which there is reason to think might transfer someone to a country on that list. This prohibition can be waived if we have reason to think that the country has ended the practices that got it on the list, and if "there is in place a mechanism that assures the United States in a verifiable manner that a person transferred, rendered, or returned will not be tortured or subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in that country, including, at a minimum, immediate, unfettered, and continuing access, from the point of return, to each such person by an independent humanitarian organization." But it cannot be waived on the basis of mere assurances that the person will not be tortured.
Extraordinary rendition is a loathsome practice. If we have grounds to think that someone is a terrorist, we ought to charge that person and try him or her in a court of law. If we do not have enough evidence to bring charges, our response should be to try to develop some, not to ship that person off to another country to be tortured. This is completely inconsistent with our respect for the rule of law, and with our claim to basic decency. It is unworthy of our country, and it should be banned.
Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that it will be. A few weeks ago, Bob Herbert wrote:
"Unfortunately, the outlook for this legislation is not good. I asked Pete Jeffries, the communications director for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, if the speaker supported Mr. Markey's bill. After checking with the policy experts in his office, Mr. Jeffries called back and said: "The speaker does not support the Markey proposal. He believes that suspected terrorists should be sent back to their home countries."Surprised, I asked why suspected terrorists should be sent anywhere. Why shouldn't they be held by the United States and prosecuted?
"Because," said Mr. Jeffries, "U.S. taxpayers should not necessarily be on the hook for their judicial and incarceration costs."
It was, perhaps, the most preposterous response to any question I've ever asked as a journalist. It was not by any means an accurate reflection of Bush administration policy. All it indicated was that the speaker's office does not understand this issue, and has not even bothered to take it seriously.
More important, it means that torture by proxy, close kin to contract murder, remains all right. Congressman Markey's bill is going nowhere. Extraordinary rendition lives."
This issue is too important, both to those individuals directly affected by it and to our moral standing as a nation, to let this bill die quietly. I would urge those of you who support this bill to write your representatives (you can find their email addresses here) and urge them to support the bill, and (if they are not already among its co-sponsors) to co-sponsor it. I would also ask those of you who have blogs to consider linking to this post and writing on this topic. Bloggers, notably including Katherine, helped bring the practice of extraordinary rendition to people's attention, and bloggers may be able to help raise awareness of this bill, or at least raise the political costs to those who oppose it. This is not a bill that should die without anyone noticing, and we can work to make sure that it doesn't.
This should not be a liberal or conservative issue; it's an issue that concerns all Americans as Americans. I love my country. I want it to stand for what's right, and that includes standing for human rights and against torture. That's why I support this bill, and why I hope that others will as well.
At Katherine's request, an open thread to discuss the New Yorker article on Extraordinary Rendition.
[To make things a little more accessible I have moved Katherine's primary comment on this up to the post itself (hope you don't mind)--Sebastian] See below:
No, there are not two Boston law students named Katherine obsessed with the topic of extraordinary rendition. I wrote this article.
That was probably obvious, huh? I guess my secret identity is out, but I don't want this site to be google-able during my job search, so I'll stick with my clever alias. (the R is for my middle initial.)
I think I've done about all I can about this House bill, so I'm indefinitely postponing the other posts on the subject I'd planned to return to my neglected studies.
EDITED rather dramatically to delete an intro that obscured more than it illuminated.
Resolved: Even if extraordinary rendition weren't immoral, it would be stupid.
I don't expect to convince people who don't already agree with me that torture isn't effective--I'm no expert, and I clearly want very badly to believe that it's not effective. But here are three pieces of evidence:
1. Terry Karney's September 29, 4:30 pm comments to this post:
Allow me, as an interrogator, not so long returned from Iraq, with friends who were/are still there and in/were in Afghanistan (among them the author of, "The Interrogators, which book I now commend to you, in light of the questions you are asking) to answer the quesetion:"IF you knew that a few hours of excruciating nail-pulling..." [that is a quote from another poster]
Not only no, but hell no. First, it doesn't work (and I've gone on, at length on the subject at Washington Monthly, Electrolite, in my blog Pecunium and anywhere else I encounter the pernicious doctrine that torture is a useful tool.
Even, in the rare case, a victim gives up truthful information, the validity is suspect, and as much time as it would have taken to get it from him otherwise is need to verify it. If torture is used as a standard tool then we get a cycle of positive feedback where the torturer leads the victim to the answers he's trying to confirm.
2. Praktile's post, "The Law of Unintended Consequences," about "one instance in which torture achieved its intended purpose, but set in motion a chain of events eventually leading to the fall of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11th, 2001."
3. A Reuters article entitled "Spies 'lap up' info from torture", which is what prompted this post.
It had occurred to me that even if one accepted that torture was good policy, it did not make much sense to rely on countries like Syria and Egypt to interrogate suspects under torture for us and faithfully describe their confessions. At a minimum, they were likely to exploit it to harm domestic opponents as well as dangerous terrorists.
Great Britain's ambassador to Uzbekistan agrees with me. The Reuters article describes a memo he wrote in July, condemning his country's reliance on evidence gained under torture in Uzbekistan, given to the CIA, and shared with Britain:
"We receive intelligence obtained under torture from the Uzbek Security Services, via the U.S. We should stop," Murray wrote. "This is morally, legally and practically wrong.The practice "fatally undermines our moral standing. It obviates my efforts to get the Uzbek government to stop torture; they are fully aware our intelligence community laps up the results."....
Murray said the material was disinformation designed to trick the United States and Britain into giving aid.
"TORTURED DUPES"
"Tortured dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the U.S. and the UK to believe: that they and we are fighting the same war against terror.
"I repeat that this material is useless -- we are selling our souls for dross. It is in fact positively harmful," he wrote.
"The aim is to convince the West that the Uzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe, that they should keep the assistance, especially military assistance, coming, and they should mute the international criticism on human rights and economic reform."
Murray said Britain's own spy agency lacked the knowledge to evaluate the material, which it received from the American CIA.
"MI6 have no operative within a thousand miles of me and certainly no expertise that can come close to my own in making this assessment," he wrote.
He described meeting an old man who was forced to watch his sons being tortured until he signed a confession admitting links to Osama bin Laden. "Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with bin Laden as I do."
The House passed the 9/11 Commission bill yesterday on 282-134 vote, but not before they amended the torture outsourcing provision.
To read the NY Times, you'd think we'd won:
House leaders did agree to amend wording that would have allowed the government to deport foreign terror suspects to countries where they could face torture. The amendment, proposed by Representative John Hostettler, Republican of Indiana, would allow the Department of Homeland Security to detain the suspects but would bar deportation until after the State Department had sought assurances that they would not be harmed. "It will protect the American people from dangerous aliens while continuing our nation's proud history of providing refuge for the innocent," Mr. Hostettler said.
One problem: the State Department already seeks those assurances. In practice, they provide no protection at all against torture.
We got assurances from Syria that Maher Arar would not be tortured. But he alleges that:
The next day I was taken upstairs again. The beating started that day and was very intense for a week, and then less intense for another week. That second and the third days were the worst. I could hear other prisoners being tortured, and screaming and screaming.Interrogations are carried out in different rooms. One tactic they use is to question prisoners for two hours, and then put them in a waiting room, so they can hear the others screaming, and then bring them back to continue the interrogation.
The cable is a black electrical cable, about two inches thick. They hit me with it everywhere on my body. They mostly aimed for my palms, but sometimes missed and hit my wrists. They were sore and red for three weeks. They also struck me on my hips, and lower back. Interrogators constantly threatened me with the metal chair, tire and electric shocks.
The tire is used to restrain prisoners while they torture them with beating on the sole of their feet. I guess I was lucky, because they put me in the tire, but only as a threat. I was not beaten while in tire. They used the cable on the second and third day, and after that mostly beat me with their hands, hitting me in the stomach and on the back of my neck, and slapping me on the face. Where they hit me with the cables, my skin turned blue for two or three weeks, but there was no bleeding. At the end of the day they told me tomorrow would be worse. So I could not sleep.
Then on the third day, the interrogation lasted about 18 hours. They beat me from time to time and make me wait in the waiting room for one to two hours before resuming the interrogation. While in the waiting room I heard a lot of people screaming. They wanted me to say I went to Afghanistan. This was a surprise to me. They had not asked about this in the United States.
They kept beating me so I had to falsely confess and told them I did go to Afghanistan. I was ready to confess to anything if it would stop the torture. They wanted me to say I went to a training camp. I was so scared I urinated on myself twice. The beating was less severe each of the following days.
Human rights groups reported on Arar's torture before he was released. His descriptions are entirely consistent with other prisoners' and human rights' groups description of what goes on in Syrian prisons. Off the record U.S. officials admit that Arar was tortured. On November 15, 2003, the New York Times reported that "American officials who spoke on condition of anonymity...say [Arar] confessed under torture in Syria that he had gone to Afghanistan for terrorist training, named his instructors and gave other intimate details."
But on less than a week later, Ashcroft was still saying it trusted that Syria had not tortured Arar: "I note the statement by the Syrian embassy ... regarding the treatment of Mr. Arar," Ashcroft said, "as that statement is fully consistent with the assurances that the United States government received prior to the removal of Mr. Arar," he told the Toronto Star. (The article was published on November 21, 2003, p. A13).
Again, it is not only Arar. Sweden received "diplomatic assurances" from Egypt that Ahmed Agiza and Muhamad al-Zery were tortured, and then proceeded to ignore their and cover up their allegations of torture.
According to the Washington Post,
In a report made public shortly afterward, Sven Linder, the Swedish ambassador to Egypt, wrote that Agiza and Zery told him they had been treated "excellently" in prison and that to him "they seemed well-nourished and showed no external signs of physical abuse or such things."Another section of the ambassador's report that remained classified until recently, however, offered a different appraisal. It noted that Agiza had complained that he was subjected to "excessive brutality" by the Swedish security police when he was seized and that he was repeatedly beaten in Egyptian prisons.
Kalla Fakta has taken part of original documents which support the testimonies, and which prove that the two men have been systematically tortured, with electricity, blows and kicks.
On at least four occasions, Swedish authorities have received information through different channels from the men about what they have been subjected to.
Continue reading "House Votes to Only Sort of Legalize Torture Outsourcing" »
Summary
Thanks to excellent reporting by a Swedish TV program and the Washington Post, this case is the best window we have into how "extraordinary rendition" works in practice.
On December 18, 2001, the United States transported Swedish asylum seekers Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad Al-Zery from Sweden's Bromma airport to Cairo. And for once we have a named witness. Paul Forell, a policeman stationed at the airport that night, described it to the TV show "Kalla Fakta":
Forell waited with the Swedish security police and two Americans in civilian clothing for the prisoners to arrive. 20 minutes later, the suspects arrived. They were handcuffed, footcuffed and blindfolded. They were each escorted by 3-4 American agents, who were also wearing hoods or balaclavas. Forell said one of the masked American agents was giving orders, and all were "very professional in their way of acting, and if you´d compare with anything it would be the National action force (Swedish elite police unit for special actions). They acted very deftly, swiftly and silently," and had "absolutely" done this before.
Forell escorted them into a small room, and waited outside. Another, anonymous source told Kalla Fakta that in the changing room, Agiza and al Zery's clothes were cut off. They were given rectal suppositories, which one witness believed contained sedatives, and dressed in dark overalls.
"When they left the changing-room, they had their clothes changed into overalls, and were still with handcuffs and footcuffs. They were taken out to the cars, and then away," Forell said.
According to the Washington Post, declassified Swedish government documents "noted that 'the American side" had offered to help in the deportation "by lending a plane for the transport" and that ""the transport from Sweden to Egypt was carried out with the help of American authorities."
Airport records obtained by Kalla Fakta show that a Gulfstream V jet registered with an American company identified by the registration/tail number N379P, the same plane that transported Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed from Karachi to Cairo, flew from the Swedish airport to Cairo that night.
Agiza and Al Zery were held in the Masra Tora prison, which is just south of Cairo. Agiza's mother, Hamida Shalaby, says they were tortured there. She told Kalla Fakta,
The mattress had electricity. The mattress. He would lay on it - like this - and his arms in chains on both sides and his legs in chains too. When they connected to the electricity, his body would rise up and then fall down and this up and down would go on until they unplugged electricity.
Shalaby said this happened four times from December 19 to February 20, and "every day" her son was tortured with electrodes while stapped to a chair. She told the Washington Post that
told her during separate visits that he was given electric shocks and that prison doctors tried to cover up scars on his body by applying a special cream. "He couldn't even pick up his arms to hug me," she said in an interview. "He was very slow and very tired and very weak."
Al Zery denied that he'd been tortured in an interview with Kalla Fakta, but it was conducted under the supervision of Egyptian security officers. (Zery has been released from prison, but cannot leave Egypt or indeed his village there & is under tight surveillance.) Zery's lawyer, Kjell Jonsson, said
It´s evident that he is speaking under coercion...This information, that they have been tortured is now confirmed. It is about very painful torture. They fasten electrodes to the most sensitive parts of the body. That is, genitals, breast nipples, tongue, ear lobes, underarms. There are physicians present to judge how much torture, how much electricity, the prisoners can take. Afterwards the exposed parts are anointed, so that there won´t be marks and scars, and cold water is poured to stop blood clots.
Swedish government documents corroborate these allegations. From the Post:
In a report made public shortly afterward, Sven Linder, the Swedish ambassador to Egypt, wrote that Agiza and Zery told him they had been treated "excellently" in prison and that to him "they seemed well-nourished and showed no external signs of physical abuse or such things."Another section of the ambassador's report that remained classified until recently, however, offered a different appraisal. It noted that Agiza had complained that he was subjected to "excessive brutality" by the Swedish security police when he was seized and that he was repeatedly beaten in Egyptian prisons.
From the Swedish TV show:
Kalla Fakta has taken part of original documents which support the testimonies, and which prove that the two men have been systematically tortured, with electricity, blows and kicks. On at least four occasions, Swedish authorities have received information through different channels from the men about what they have been subjected to."
(12th post in a series on the House GOP's attempt to legalize "Extraordinary Rendition". Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
Please read this very, very important Newsweek story. As I feared, Gonzales' letter is not worth much.
Hastert's spokesman John Feehery said that Homeland Security had requested the extraordinary rendition provision, but "for whatever reason the White House has decided they don’t want to take this on because they’re afraid of the political implications.”
It's actually worse than I thought. It's not just a legal justification to keep doing what they've been doing. It's not justa way to get rid of the Maher Arar case. It still might have been a political ploy, but not only a political ploy. Torture outsourcing was going to be--still may be--the substitute for Guantanamo Bay after the Supreme Court decision:
He said the provision, mainly laid out in Section 3032 and 3033 , was designed as a way of addressing the problem created by last summer’s Supreme Court decision. The justices ruled that the administration couldn’t detain people indefinitely without trial or charges. As a result, the government has ordered the release of suspects such as Yaser Hamdi, a dual citizen of the United States and Saudi Arabia who was captured in Afghanistan and held for three years as an enemy combatant.Now, Feehery said, “we’ve got a situation where we’ve got these people in the country who ought not to be in the country. We have to release them because of the Supreme Court case. So Homeland Security wanted this provision.”
The DOJ spokesman confirmed this:
Justice spokesman Mark Corallo also said it was Homeland Security’s call. “It’s their issue,” Corallo said. “They’re the immigration people now. Not us.”
The House is still pushing for the provision, and I'm sure the White House has no objection. They just need to keep a safe distance. They can't be allowed to. The press must ask Bush about this directly.
(11th post in a series on the House GOP's attempt to legalize "Extraordinary Rendition". Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
This letter to the editor appears in today's Washington Post:
The President's Stance on Torture
Tuesday, October 5, 2004; Page A24A Sept. 30 front-page article inaccurately reported that the Bush administration supports a provision in the House intelligence reform bill that would permit the deportation of certain foreign nationals to countries where they are likely to be tortured.
The president did not propose and does not support this provision. He has made clear that the United States stands against and will not tolerate torture and that the United States remains committed to complying with its obligations under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Consistent with that treaty, the United States does not expel, return or extradite individuals to countries where the United States believes it is likely that they will be tortured.
ALBERTO R. GONZALES
Counsel to the President
Washington
I don't know how seriously to take this. As I think my posts here have demonstrated in mind numbing detail, we DO expel, return, or extradite individuals to countries where are tortured.
We do get a wink-wink-nudge-nudge "assurance" from Syria or Egpyt that they will not torture suspects. But given 1) those countries' human rights records, 2) the numerous and well supported allegations of torture from suspects we have sent there, 3) the numerous statements from intelligence officials that we deport people to these countries knowing full well how they treat suspects--in fact, we do it because of how they treat suspects, and 4) that we get full reports from, and in some cases participate in, their interrogations, these "assurances" are as flimsy as a wet tissue.
And since Gonzales is not honest about what the administration is doing, I can't really take his word for it that the administration opposes what Hastert is doing.
Still, this letter is good news. It does at least indicate that the President does not feel he can publicly support the legalization of "extraordinary rendition." That is something. And perhaps it will free House Republicans to vote their conscience on Markey's amendment. That is also something.
But there is no way the President & the Senate won't get their way on this in conference if they mean it. If the conference version of the bill contains the language legalizing extraordinary rendition, Gonzales' letter will be worth about as much to me as Syria's promise not to torture should be worth to him.
(10th post in a series on the House GOP's attempt to legalize "Extraordinary Rendition". Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
Summary
I just learned about this one a half hour ago. It's been reported on even less than the other cases in the U.S. press (yoo hoo, U.S. press! Look alive!)--just one news brief and one editorial in Seattle newspapers over a year ago, and no one's picked up on the Amnesty International report--so I'm posting it out of chronological sequence.
According to Amnesty International, Ibrahim Habaci and Arif Ulusam of Turkey, Faha al Balhi of Saudi Arabi, MUhmud Sardar Issa of the Sudan, and Khalifa Abdi Hassan of Kenya were arrested in Blantyre, Malawi, on June 22, 2003. The arrests were carried out by Malawian police and CIA agents. They were held in secret. Their families lawyers intervened with the High Court of Malawi, which ordered them to be brought before the court in 48 hours.
By then they'd been flown out of the country. On June 26, 2003, a Malawian government official wrote to Amnesty that:
the arrests were not done by the Malawi Police but by the National Intelligence Bureau and the USA Secret Agents who controlled the whole operation. From the time the arrests were made, the welfare of the detainees, their abode and itinerary for departure were no longer in the hands of the Malawian authorities. Thus as a country we did not have the means to stop or delay the operation...In Malawi we do not know where these people are but they are in hands of the Americans who them out of the country using a chartered aircraft. They should now being going through investigations at a location only known by the USA."
The U.S. ambassador to Malawi denied that the U.S. was responsible for the deportations.
There was some question over where they were taken. According to the Seattle Times, the men were suspected of funneling money to Al Qaeda through Islamic charities, and had been flown to Botswana for interrogation. A Guardian article from August 2003 describes "reports that the Air Malawi plane chartered by the US stopped off in Zimbabwe on the way to a third country, possibly Djibouti or Uganda, where the men were questioned for a month." Several other sources said that they were interrogated in Zimbabwe for a month.
It seems as if the last story is accurate, based on what one of the prisoner's told his wife. Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe has one of the worst human rights records on the planet, and severe and sometimes fatal torture is widespread there. But fortunately, for once, these men seem not to have been harmed. Ella Ulusam, Arif Usulam's wife, told Xinhua New Service that her husband had called her from Istanbul,
informing her that they were kept for 29 days in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwean(sic), where US and Malawian intelligence officials cleared them of any al-Qaeda links."He told me apart from the trauma of being arrested at night with no reason, they were treated well and are all in good health, " she said.
The Guardian confirms that the CIA and the Malawian government decided they were innocent:
Nothing more was heard until July 24 when lawyers heard that Fahad Ral Bahli had surfaced in Riyadh and the other four in Sudan, all free men. Hub-Eddin Abbakar, a colleague of the Sudanese suspect, said they had been handed over to their respective embassies in Khartoum after the CIA decided they were innocent.
The President of Malawi met with Ella Ulusam and another of the prisoner's wives and apologized to them for their treatment. From Xinhua Net:
"The president was very apologetic," said Ella during the Tuesday interview. "He just said he was sorry, it was not the Malawi government, it was all the Americans. That's all he said."
Continue reading "Five Suspects Deported From Malawi to Zimbabwe" »
(9th post in a series on the House GOP's attempt to legalize "Extraordinary Rendition". Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
Summary
At 1 am in the morning of October 23 or 24, 2001, in a dark, empty corner of the Karachi airport, Pakistan handed, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, over to U.S. officials. Mohammed was shackled and blindfolded. A Pakistani newspaper reported that he had been "missing since the start of October" from Karachi University, where he was studying microbiology.
Mohammed is Yemeni, and was a suspect in the U.S.S. Cole bombing.
The U.S. flew him to Amman, Jordan on a private Gulfstream jet (which you may hear more about in a subsequent post) with the registration number N379P.
He hasn't been seen since. Amnesty International has asked the U.S. where he is and what his legal status is, but gotten no reply. According to the 2001 State Department human rights report for Jordan, prisoners there made allegations of “methods of torture include sleep deprivation, beatings on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions, and extended solitary confinement.”
(8th post in a series on the House GOP's attempt to legalize "Extraordinary Rendition". Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
I noted in my last post that if Congressman Markey's amendment fails, and the language legalizing extraordinary rendition make into the final version of the 9/11 Commission bill, Congressional Democrats will face a similar dilemma to the one they faced over the Homeland Security Department bill in 2002. It occurred to me that this might be a deliberate strategy on DeLay's and Hastert's part.
In this AP story, such raving conspiracy theorists as Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, and Republicans Susan Collins and Christopher Shays, suggest that's exactly what's happening:
"There is anxiety -- you will not be surprised to hear -- among some of my Democratic colleagues in Congress, based on the 2002 experience with the Department of Homeland Security, that this will happen again," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn...."There is no confusion about the timing of this bill," said House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland. Republican leaders expect "Democrats to either vote for it or to be attacked about being against protecting the American people if they vote against it."
Even some Republicans are worried that some of the political maneuvering could doom bills addressing the Sept. 11 commission's report. "I have concerns that some on my side of the aisle want there to be some poison pills," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn.
"If we can't put partisan politics and presidential campaigning aside when we're trying to strengthen our nation's ability to deter and respond to a terrorism attack, we might as well go home," added Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "This is just too important to allow partisan politics to interfere with the progress of this bill." ....
Democrats say the GOP is hoping the same thing will happen with the Sept. 11 recommendations if they put in provisions that Democrats don't like. "One House member even referred to having Democrats over a barrel in a description of this strategy," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
Tom DeLay innocently bats his eyelashes and said it would never occur to him to do such a thing. Dennis Hastert's spokesman is less cautious:
"The Democrats got spanked hard on homeland security," said John Feehery, spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. "I don't think they want to get spanked again."
I'll leave the commentary to others. I couldn't possibly convey what I think about this.
(7th post in a series on the House GOP's attempt to legalize "Extraordinary Rendition". Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
Via Congressman Markey's Office: The Republican leadership has released the version of the 9/11 Commission bill that will go before the full House this week. Here is a PDF version. The torture outsourcing provisions are still there. (Sections 3032 and 3033, pages 254-258.)
I didn't have much hope otherwise. I'm still pretty depressed right now.
The Senate version doesn't include the language legalizing extraordinary rendition. But given that the D.O.J. apparently requested these provisions and given the routine exclusion of Democrats and moderates from conference committees on major bills, I would be very very surprised if they were not included in the bill that comes out of conference.
Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans will probably not vote against, let alone filibuster, the bill based on this issue. Not the 9/11 Bill, not in an election year. They remember the Homeland Security Bill and the 2002 midterms. They remember how a triple amputee was successfully painted as soft on defense and this led to the loss of the Senate. I don't think it's farfetched to say that Hastert and DeLay remember too, and that it's part of the reason for the anti-immigration provisions in the bill. Heads they win, tails Democrats lose. Maybe they can even have it both ways: pass the bill AND get a few conscience-ridden Democrats to oppose it and give them negative ad fodder.
So if I had to guess, I would tell you that Markey's amendment is our last, best hope of stopping this.
Continue reading "Legislative Update: Torture Outsourcing Bill One Step Closer" »
(6th post in a series on the House GOP's attempt to legalize "Extraordinary Rendition". Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
Summary
Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was arrested in Pakistan on October 5, 2001, and sent to Egypt for interrogation shortly after that. Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat, Pakistan’s Interior Minister, told the Australian TV show SBS Dateline that Habib was sent to Egypt on U.S. orders and in U.S. custody: "The US wanted him for their own investigations. We are not concerned where they take him," Hayat said. Hayat also stated that Egypt had never requested Habib’s extradition.
The Australian government has accused Habib of attending Lashkar and Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan. An Australian TV program, Four Corners on the ABC network, has reported that a raid on Habib's home in Sunday had uncovered "notes from a terrorist weapons training course", that he told a friend he planned "to go to Afghanistan to live an Islamic life in the bin Laden camp," and that he had contacts with two men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Mahmud Abouhalima and Ibrahim El-Gabrowny. Sheik Mohammed Omran, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric in Melbourne, has said that he banned Habib from his mosque for trying to recruit people for jihad.
Habib’s family and lawyers deny all these charges. His wife says he traveled to Pakistan to look for an Islamic school for their children.
Habib’s lawyers say he was imprisoned for six months in Egypt and tortured with beatings, electric shock, and drug injection. Dr. Najeeb Al-Nauimi, the former Justice minister of Qatar, told the Dateline TV program that these accusations were true, though it is not clear how he knew this. From an unofficial transcript:
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI, FORMER MINISTER OF JUSTICE, QATAR: They said he will die.
REPORTER: Tell me more specifically what you were told from your sources about what happened to Mamdouh Habib in Egypt.
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Well, he was in fact tortured. He was interrogated in a way which a human cannot stand up.
REPORTER: And you know this absolutely?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Yes. We were told that he - they rang the bell that he will die and somebody had to help him.
REPORTER: And again, did your sources tell you what kinds of things he was saying in Egypt to his torturers, to his interrogators?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: My sources did not say exactly what dialogue but they say that he accepted to sign anything.
REPORTER: So he was talking lots?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Yes - "Whatever you want, I will sign. I'm not involved. I'm not Egyptian. I'm Egyptian by background but I'm Australian." But he was really beaten, he was really tortured.
REPORTER: Do you think...
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: They tried to use different ways of treating him in the beginning but in the end of that they thought he was lying and that's why they were very tough.
Sometime in the spring of 2002, most likely in May, the U.S. brought Habib from Egypt to Guantanamo Bay. Ian Kemish, a spokesman for Australia’s foreign affairs department, told Dateline SBC that 10 days after he arrived in Guantanamo Habib "made some serious complaints about maltreatment during his time in Egypt" to visiting Australian officials.
This July, three British detainees released from Guantanamo Bay, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, and Rhuhel Ahmed, gave a long public statement about conditions there. It contained these allegations about Habib (on page 108):
Habib himself was in catastrophic shape – mental and physical. As a result of his having been tortured in Egypt he used to bleed from his nose, mouth and ears when he was asleep. We would say he was about 40 years of age. He got no medical attention for this. We used to hear him ask but his interrogator said that he shouldn’t have any. The medics would come and see him and then after he'd asked for medical help they would come back and say if you cooperate with your interrogators then we can do something.
Habib is still imprisoned in Guantanamo, and has not yet been charged before a military commission.
post in a series on the House GOP's attempt to legalize "Extraordinary Rendition". Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
(see also this post from June 15, which relies on the same source.)
Summary
In 1998, the CIA arranged for Ahmed Osman Saleh, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Naggar, Shawki Salama Attiya, Essam Abdel Tawwab, and Mohamed Hassan Tita to be captured in Albania and sent to Egypt for interrogation and imprisonment. According to the Wall Street Journal (see below for link, cite & excerpts--this article is excellent, highly recommended reading, and is the source for all of the information in this post unless otherwise noted.), they were all members of a cell of Egypt's Islamic Jihad that Ayman Al-Zawahiri's brother Mohamed started in 1992, and that U.S. officials considered "among the most dangerous terror outfits in Europe". Islamic Jihad was merging with Al Qaeda at the time.
The arrests were primarily planned by the CIA, which sent 12 agents to plan them & enlisted Albania and Egypt's help. The U.S. and Albania spent three months planning the operation, and Egypt issued pre-arranged charges and extradition requests against some of the suspects during this time. The arrests were carried out in June, July, and August. The suspects were flown to Egypt on a private jet and handed over to the authorities in Cairo.
All five of them alleged that they were tortured in Egypt. The Wall Street Journal Article Mentions that the Egyptian lawyer Hafez Abu-Saada, "who represented all five members of the Tirana cell, subsequently recorded their complaints in a published report." I believe I have found a copy of Abu-Saada's report, but only the Google cache is available.* These are excerpts from the report. (There are some translation/grammar errors, which I have not attempted to correct):
--Ahmed Osman Saleh (referred to as "Ahmed Ismail Osman" in Abu-Saada's report) "was detained in an unknown place for two months, and he was being kept in isolation cell then he was tortured by beaten and suspended him. He was referred to SSI in Lazogli and was detained for 45 days during that period he was beaten and the electricity passed in his body."
--Ahmed Ibrahim al-Naggar (spelled "Nagar" in Abu-Saada's report) "was arrested on July 2, 1998 on his arrival to Cairo airport as he was deported from Albania, he was detained in an unknown place for 35 days-as he stated to the EOHR lawyers in the session on February 4, 1999 before the court body. During this period he was blindfolded, and was lodging for 24 hours in a room covered with water to reach his knee and then he was moved to State Security Investigation in Lazogli, and he was tortured by tying his legs, shackling his hands behind his back, forcing him to lie on a sponge mattress putting a chair on his chest and another between his leg and passing electricity to his body."
--Shawki Salama Attiya (referred to as "Shawki Salama Mustafa" in Abu-Saada's report) "was detained for 65 days, the water covered his knee, his legs was tied and he was dragged on his face. He was referred to the State Security Investigation in Lazogli-as stated in prosecution investigation on September 12, 1998 for many sessions in Folder # 1 page 20, he was tied, his legs and hands was suspended and they passing electricity to his male organ and castrates** and they even threatened of sexually abusing him."
--Essam Abdel Tawwab (referred to as "Essam Abdel Tawab Abdel Aleim" in Abu-Saada's report) "was detained in unknown place and then he referred to SSI, during this period he was beaten by hands and legs, his right hand was injured by a sharpener tool, also his legs and hands was tied and suspended and beaten and the electricity passed in a sensitive parts of his body, as stated in the prosecution investigations 'their was a recovered wound.'"
--Mohamed Hassan Tita "was tortured –as stated in the prosecution investigations in page 65, he said to the EOHR Lawyer that “the electricity passed through my legs and back and I was suspended”.
There are also allegations that Egyptian authorities arrested and tortured the suspect's families. Naggar's brother Mohamed told The Wall Street Journal "that he and his relatives also were -- and continue to be -- harassed and tortured by Egyptian police. He said he had suffered broken ribs and fractured cheekbones. "They changed my features," Mohamed Naggar said, touching his face. ." And this is another excerpt from Abu-Saada's report:
Wives and Children: - The defendants Ahmed Ibrahim El Nagar’s wife, she was arrested after him and while her departure from Albania in Cairo Airport. She was detained in SSI in Lazogli for three days and they ------- her. Worth mentioning, she was arrested before in 1993 for three days and was tortured by passing electricity to her body.-The defendant Shawki Salama’s wife called Gihan Hassan Mohamed Hassan and a daughter of defendant Hassan Ahmed Hassan (defendant # 104), was arrested on August 1998 after her ------- from Albania and she was detained for three days in SSI in Lazogli. She was tortured by passing electricity to her body, beating her and tying her hands and legs. Worth mentioning the prosecutor recommend her as a witness against her husband but the court improbable her witness from the -------.
According to the Wall Street Journal, all five defendants were tried and convicted in a mass trial known as the "Returnees-from-Albania Case" in early 1999. Naggar and Saleh were executed in February, 2000, based on earlier terrorism charges. Attiya was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Tita and Tawwab were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. (Abu-Saada's report says that Tawwab was sentenced to 15 years.)
*If anyone knows how to do a screen capture of this document, please email it to me at katherinesblog@hotmail.com. (UPDATE: several readers have done so. Thanks!)
**From context I think this is a mistranslation of "testicles" and not a verb, but I of course have no way of knowing for certain.
(4th post in a series on the House GOP's attempt to legalize "Extraordinary Rendition". Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
(a.k.a. Talat Fouad Qassem, Abu Talal Al-Qasimy, Talat Fouad Kasem).
Summary
This is the first case I have found of extraordinary rendition.* Qassem was arrested in Zagreb, Croatia. U.S. officials questioned him for two days on a ship in the Adriatic Sea, focusing on an alleged assassination plot against President Clinton. Then they sent him to Egypt, where he had been sentenced to death in absentia by a military tribunal in 1992.
There is some question about the date when this took place. The Washington Post has reported that it happened in 1998, but the four other sources I’ve found (a 1995 Toronto Star article, a 2001 Boston Globe article, and two 2000 articles in the Arab press) say it was 1995, and I believe that is the correct date.
According to Islamic militant sources in Egypt, Egypt took Qassem to their intelligence headquarters in al-Mansoura, then moved him to Cairo in October 1995. He has not been seen since. Egypt has refused to comment on his whereabouts or on whether he is dead or alive.
His wife believes that they executed him several years ago.
*this is actually one of those grey area cases between rendition and extradition—Egypt had charges against him. They had imprisoned him for seven years in the past before his suspected role in the plot against Anwar Sadat before he escaped from prison, and had tried to get Pakistan to extradite him in 1992, so these were not charges made only at the request of the U.S.
(3rd post in a series on the House GOP's attempt to legalize "Extraordinary Rendition". Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
I’m about to begin a series of post summarizing specific examples of extraordinary rendition. I will go in chronological order, more or less.
One of the more difficult questions in writing these posts was how to discuss the evidence for and against each suspect’s guilt. I considered everything from:
1) omitting all discussion of the suspect’s likely guilt or innocence, to
2) giving my own one or two word verdict, (e.g. “probably guilty,” “probably innocent”, “unknown”), to
3) a more complex analysis of the evidence or lack thereof of the suspect’s guilt.
In the end I rejected all these approaches. I rejected #1 for two reasons. First, while I strongly believe that it is wrong to torture anyone, I also believe it is much worse to torture an innocent man than a guilty one. There is also no question that I have a different emotional response to a description of Syria’s torture of Maher Arar than to Syria’s likely torture of Mohammed Haydar Zammar, the man accused of recruiting Mohammed Atta to Al Qaeda in Hamburg. Second, I strongly oppose extraordinary rendition and want to convince people to oppose this bill, but I’m trying to act as a journalist in these posts and I don’t want to stack the deck or shade the truth. Deleting all the information about these suspects’ alleged crimes would stack the deck.
I rejected #2 and #3 because I do not feel comfortable judging men to be murderers, attempted murderers or innocents, based on sketchy news reports. Even if I qualify those verdicts I will be making judgments I do not have the evidence to make. And in almost every case here, we only have the case for the prosecution (usually incomplete for security reasons). The case for the defense is missing, because the suspect is still in custody or dead or otherwise unavailable. I would probably have classed Maher Arar and almost all of the people in Guantanamo as “probably guilty” based on some of the early news reports; I would not do so now. (This does not mean that there is not much better evidence for some of these men’s guilt than there ever was for Arar’s.)
In the end, I decided to give some excerpts from the sources I found about what the suspect was accused of and some of the evidence for his innocence and guilt, but not to comment much or draw conclusions. And the focus of this series will be on providing information about the U.S. practice of extraordinary rendition, not on determining whether these men are innocent or guilty.
Some definition of terms would also be helpful. “Extradition” is, according to Merriam Webster’s, “the surrender of an alleged criminal usually under the provisions of a treaty or statute by one authority (as a state) to another having jurisdiction to try the charge.” “Rendition” is a term the CIA started using in the 1990s to describe transporting a suspect outside of legal extradition processes. “Extraordinary rendition” is when the CIA transfers a suspect to another country for interrogation—ordinary rendition, I guess, is when the CIA seizes a suspect and transports him to the U.S. for question. I am dealing only with extraordinary rendition here; I will not describe cases where someone is shipped to Guantanamo.
In practice, it is sometimes hard to separates cases into these three categories. It is not always clear whether we are sending a suspect to a foreign government with some degree of CIA assistance or information-sharing in the interrogation, or sending a suspect to one of the secret U.S.-run prisons in foreign countries. (There is also not a bright line between those categories.) The line between extradition and extraordinary rendition can also be unclear: sometimes a suspect is “rendered” in that we don’t follow extradition laws in transporting him, but we’re sending him to a country where he has committed crimes or acts of terrorism and is facing charges. Sometimes there are charges against him, but they are pretextual, and were written up at the request of the United States.
Since there are these grey areas, and since I am not an expert on either extradition law or U.S. intelligence and covert ops, I am erring on the side of writing about a case.
There is also a fourth category, which does not have a name, where we organize the arrest and interrogation of a suspect in a foreign country where he is not a citizen but travels voluntarily. This comes up in the cases of Ahmad Abou El-Maati, Abdullah Almalki, and Arwad al-Buchi. Since those cases are so relevant to figuring out what happened to Maher Arar and how the CIA works with foreign intelligence services in interrogating suspects, I will discuss them even though they are not technically extraordinary renditions.