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Ferre
Cannabis Sacrament Minister.
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Location: Amsterdam
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 Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 4:56 am Post subject: US agents ‘kidnapped militant’ for torture in Egypt |
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| Quote: |
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1471913,00.html
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[CIA Rendition Report]
US agents ‘kidnapped militant’ for torture in Egypt
by Stephen Grey, Milan
ITALIAN police are investigating allegations that American
intelligence agents kidnapped an Islamic militant in Milan
and transported him to Egypt, where he was tortured.
Osama Moustafa Nasr, an Egyptian dissident with alleged links
to Al-Qaeda, disappeared in Milan on February 16, 2003,
after eyewitnesses saw him being approached by three men
as he walked to a mosque.
A kidnap inquiry was opened in Italy after Nasr,
also known as Abu Omar, was temporarily released from custody
in Egypt last year and telephoned his wife and friends
to tell them what had happened.
He claimed he had been tortured so badly by secret police
in Cairo that he had lost hearing in one ear.
Italian officers who intercepted the call
believe he has since been rearrested.
Although details of the inquiry remain confidential,
the Italians are thought to be investigating claims
that Nasr was taken by US intelligence agents to Aviano airbase
and flown to Egypt in an American plane.
If confirmed, the case would be one of the most controversial
instances of the American policy of “rendition”
— sending prisoners for imprisonment and questioning in other countries.
(Where TORTURE is Legal)
Since September 11, 2001, dozens of prisoners have been transferred
by America to countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia
where interrogation techniques may be harsh.
As The Sunday Times disclosed last November, US agents have repeatedly used civilian executive jets to transport prisoners to the Middle East, including a Gulfstream that was a frequent visitor to British airports. The plane was sold two days after the Sunday Times article appeared.
Imam Imad, the head of Viale Jenner mosque in Milan,
an alleged centre of Islamic militancy, said Nasr had described
how he tried to resist as he was stopped in the street
and forced into a car before being taken to a military base.
“He can’t be sure if it was the Italians or Americans who took him,”
Imad said. “He was blindfolded. But they were western people. It was certainly not the Egyptians who captured him and took him to Cairo.”
Armando Spataro, the deputy chief prosecutor of Milan, would not
confirm whether there was any evidence of US involvement but said
he was conducting a far-reaching inquiry.
If Americans had played a part, “it would be a serious breach
of Italian law”.
Spataro and other Italian prosecutors are particularly angry
about Nasr’s disappearance because they were preparing to prosecute him in Milan. They had bugged a conversation that appeared to suggest he was colluding in the establishment of a new terrorist network in Europe.
The CIA and other US government departments refuse to discuss rendition publicly, except to insist that all transfers are conducted legally. Privately officials say they have guarantees that prisoners sent
to other countries are well treated.
Michael Scheuer, a former senior CIA official who once played
a leading role in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden,
has confirmed that the agency has been involved
in the rendition of close to 100 terror suspects.
The policy of
“capturing people and taking them to second or third countries”
was developed after the CIA was told to dismantle terrorist cells
across the world, said Scheuer, who resigned last November.
Barbara Olshansky, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights
in New York, said the rendition policy was a clear violation
of the United Nations Convention Against Torture,
which is incorporated into American law and bans
the transfer of prisoners to countries where torture is likely.
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This is the second investigation of this kind. In Germany there is an investigation going on what happened to a German man from Arab origine who got kidnapped the same way by Americans (CIA?) in the Balcan and brought by plane to a middle east country. I have posted that story also somewhere on these boards.
My guess is that this is only the tip of the iceberg, much more will surface when time comes. Just as we had all these years ago when the stories about Dachau and other concentration camps came out. Funny thing is that it's the same family envolved again...well, actually not so funny at all.
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Fyrefly1
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 07 Sep 2004
Posts: 2209
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 5:01 am Post subject: |
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It's really weird...
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Fyrefly1
"All truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th Century Philosopher |
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indicaspice
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 16 Nov 2003
Posts: 1491
Location: somewhere on earth
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| Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 5:08 am Post subject: |
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But shouldn't come as a suprise.
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entropical
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Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 95
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Ferre
Cannabis Sacrament Minister.
Joined: 14 Apr 2003
Posts: 7295
Location: Amsterdam
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| Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 4:49 am Post subject: |
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Maybe the American government thinks it is cool to kidnap and torture people but the rest of the world obviously doesn't:
| Quote: |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/file_on_4/4246089.stm
CIA prisoners 'tortured' in Arab jails
By Stephen Grey
BBC Radio 4's File on 4
A former CIA official has confirmed suspicions that dozens of terror
suspects have been flown to jails in Middle Eastern countries where
torture is routinely practised, and without reference to courts of law.
Michael Scheuer, who once headed the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and left the
CIA last November after a 22-year career, said the practice, known as
"extraordinary rendition", was seen by the US as a key tactic in its war
on terror.
"The bottom line is getting anyone off the streets who is involved in acts
of terrorism is a worthwhile activity," he told the BBC's File On 4
programme.
"Human rights is a very flexible concept... It depends how hypocritical
you want to be on a particular day "
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40806000/jpg/_40806653_scheuer_203ap.jpg
Mike Scheuer, former CIA agent
Mr Scheuer said the operation was authorised at the highest levels of the
CIA and the White House and was approved by their lawyers.
"The practice of capturing people and taking them to second or third
countries arose because the Executive assigned the job of dismantling
terrorist cells to the CIA.
"When the agency came back and said 'Where do you want to take them?' the
message was 'That's your job'."
He added: "The idea that this is a rogue operation that someone has dreamt
up is just absurd. I personally have no problem with doing any operation
as long as it's justified legal by my superiors."
UN convention violated
The former CIA officer acknowledged that some of the suspects sent to
places such as Egypt could then be tortured.
But he said: "It wouldn't be us torturing them and I think there is a lot
of Hollywood involved with our portrayal of torture in Egypt and Saudi
Arabia.
"Human rights is a very flexible concept... It depends how hypocritical
you want to be on a particular day."
Human rights campaigners, however, find it difficult to reconcile
rendition with President Bush's claims of upholding the United Nations
convention against torture. It says: "No state shall expel, return or
exradite a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for
believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture."
Mr Scheuer was among other ex-CIA officers who told File On 4 that as well
as sending people to Guantanamo Bay, both the CIA and the US military were
sending dozens of others to prisons in countries such as Jordan, Syria and
Egypt.
"I could hear people being tortured. They'd be saying: 'Oh Allah! Oh God!'
I could hear people screaming." -- Maher Arar
The investigation looks at the dangers of sending potentially innnocent
people to these regimes where, according to the Americans' own State
Department, torture is readily practised.
It hears from a Canadian man called Maher Arar, who was stopped by US
officials when travelling through New York's JFK airport in September 2002
and sent to Syria where he was held for a year. He says he was brutally
tortured.
The reason for his arrest was information passed to the US by Canada,
linking him to a terrorist suspect in Ottawa.
Mr Arar is a Syrian national by birth but holds a Canadian passport. Once
in Syria, he says he was kept in a tiny cell for over 10 months at the
Damascus headquarters of the Syrian secret police.
One day, after 18 hours of torture, he falsely confessed to having been to
Afghanistan.
US Guantanamo Bay camp:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40806000/jpg/_40806655_detainee203ap.jpg
Attacked for flouting human rights
"The interrogator said: 'What is this?' I said: 'A cable'. He said: 'Open
your hand,' and he hit it. The pain was awful.
"I was crying. Then he told me to open my left hand and he hit me. Then he
would ask me more questions.
"An hour or two later he'd put me in a room and I could hear people being
tortured. They'd be saying: 'Oh Allah! Oh God!' I could hear people
screaming."
Mr Arar was released and flown home to Ottawa three days short of a year
after being placed in Syrian custody.
No legal charges have ever been brought against him in either country. In
Canada, where his case has caused a political outcry, a public inquiry is
under way.
Electric shocks
An Australian named Mamdouh Habib was sent to Egypt in October 2001 by US
authorities after being captured in Pakistan.
He was held in Egypt for six months, and said he was subjected to extreme
torture involving electric shocks, before he was sent onwards to
Guantanamo.
He was released last month and flown home to Australia.
The programme also reveals that an official investigation is under way in
Italy into suspicions that an Islamic militant was kidnapped off the
streets of Milan and flown to Egypt by American agents.
Executive jets
Critics of the extraordinary rendition policy told File On 4 that British
citizens have been arrested abroad and moved by the US to Guantanamo and
to Arab prisons as a result of the sharing of intelligence with British
security services or the British police.
"Evidence obtained as a result of any acts of torture by British
officials, or with which British authorities were complicit, would not be
admissible in criminal or civil proceedings in the UK." -- Foreign Office
statement
Wahab al-Rawi, a British businessman, also claims he was arrested in the
Gambia and questioned by American agents in November 2002, after the US
was tipped off by British authorities.
Wahab was freed but his brother and a business partner were flown on to
Guantanamo, where they are still being held.
It is known that the American civilian executive jets used to transport
the prisoners around the world often pass through British airspace and use
British airports. The File On 4 team discovered one was in Glasgow on
Monday.
A Foreign Office spokesperson told the programme it totally condemned
torture but could not rule out using any reliable intelligence wherever it
came from if it was going to save lives.
The US Department of Defense, the CIA, and the State Department all
declined requests for interviews.
File On 4: BBC Radio 4, Tuesday 8 February, 2005 at 2000 GMT.
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aeroplane
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 10 Nov 2004
Posts: 1472
Location: Valhalla
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| Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 1:58 am Post subject: |
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Ferre wrote:
| Quote: |
My guess is that this is only the tip of the iceberg, much more will surface when time comes. Just as we had all these years ago when the stories about Dachau and other concentration camps came out. Funny thing is that it's the same family envolved again...well, actually not so funny at all.
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| Quote: |
I personally have no problem with doing any operation
as long as it's justified legal by my superiors. |
Its really sick when the CIA agent only sees a problem if his superiors have not given the legal green light. Its sick that we allow this to happen using the justification that this person could be a terrorist... or might know one... or have passed a terrorist on the streets... or... ask yourself: How long until they consider me a terrorist? Who will stand for me?
I would say this is demonic, but I don't want to offend persons who religious beliefs are satanic. That is to say this kind of behaviour is not even allowed in the Church of Satan. How can Christians permit it?
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