The Horrific Stories of CIA-sponsored Torture That Aren’t in the Senate Report. As bad as the stories in the Senate torture report are, there is a whole class of victims who arent even mentioned. The executive summary released last week makes only passing reference to an integral component of the CIA program: the extraordinary rendition of prisoners to foreign custody for interrogation by those countries intelligence services—with the full knowledge that the men would be tortured. Because rendition was beyond the reports scope, theres still no official account of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other victims of torture that the CIA is responsible for. As the Washington Post revealed in 2005, the CIA identified two categories of prisoners for detention and interrogation: high value detainees that the agency held onto and second tier ones who were farmed out for detention and interrogation toother governments. As former CIA officer Bob Baer explained in disturbing detail, If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear—never to see them again—you send them to Egypt. Theres still no official account of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other victims of torture that the CIA is responsible for. How many detainees met such fates? ThePost reported that more than twice as many prisoners were rendered by the CIA to foreign governments as were held by the agency. Since we now know that 119 men were held by the CIA, that would mean at least 238 people were sent to other countries. And this figure could be much higher: In his January 2003 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush said that more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Much of what we know about this practice of outsourcing torture is from the harrowing accounts of its victims and survivors who have bravely come forward to tell their stories. One of them is Ahmed Agiza, an Egyptian citizen who lived with his wife and young family in Sweden, where they were seeking refugee status. In December 2001, Ahmed and a friend were apprehended by Swedish police, who turned them over to the CIA. In what was reportedly the Bush administrations first rendition operation, Ahmed and his friend were sent to Egypt, where they were held incommunicado by Egyptian Intelligence Services, interrogated, and mercilessly tortured. In an unfair trial in 2004, Ahmed was convicted and sentenced to 25 years for membership in an organization banned under Egyptian law. The next year, an official Swedish investigation confirmed that the CIA had been involved in the rendition operation, and that the agency had cruelly and inhumanely treated the two men during their capture and transportation to Egypt. The U.N. Committee Against Torture and the U.N. Human Rights Committee also verified the mens claims of torture and inhumane treatment in Egypt. The Swedish government compensated Ahmed for its role in his torture, and later granted him official residence status. The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against the American aviation company—Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan—that provided logistical support to the CIA aircraft used to render the two men to torture in Egypt. The case was dismissed on the grounds that allowing it to continue would reveal state secrets. The United States has yet to acknowledge its involvement in Ahmeds torture. Another victim is Abou Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen of Moroccan descent, who was unlawfully rendered by the CIA from Pakistan to Morocco in May 2002. There, he was handed over to Moroccan intelligence agents and taken to the notorious Temara prison, where he was held incommunicado, interrogated, and tortured. He was imprisoned for more than eight months before being released in February 2003 without explanation or charge. Britel was also a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan, and the U.S. government has yet to own up to its role in his ordeal............. https://aclu.org/blog/national-security-human-rights/horrific-stories-cia-sponsored-torture-arent-senate-report
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 18:45:44 +0000