Extraordinary Rendition on Trial: ACLU tries to ground Boeing subsidiary that trafficked in torture

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Extraordinary Rendition on Trial
ACLU tries to ground the Boeing subsidiary that trafficked in torture
By Christopher Moraff



On Nov. 1, 2002, Bisher Al-Rawi, a citizen of Iraq, was preparing to board a plane at Gatwick Airport in London, en route to Gambia, when screeners found something suspicious in his luggage.

Al-Rawi—a permanent resident of the United Kingdom who worked sporadically as an interpreter for MI5, the U.K. counterintelligence agency—was traveling to Africa to set up a nut-oil processing venture there, having spent the previous months obtaining the necessary permits and licenses from Gambian authorities.

It took four days for British authorities to conclude the object he was carrying was nothing more than a common store-bought battery charger. On Nov. 4, Al-Rawi was released from custody, but by then, a course of events had been set in motion that would launch Al-Rawi on a five-year Kafkaesque odyssey ending with his March 2007 release from U.S. detention at Guantánamo Bay. Unbeknownst to him, Al-Rawi was about to become the subject of a then-secret CIA program known as “extraordinary rendition.”

In August 2007, Al-Rawi and a second man, Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah—a 38-year-old Yemeni citizen who underwent a similar ordeal in 2003—joined in an ACLU lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan, alleging the company played a critical role in their renditions. A total of five plaintiffs are named in the suit, each of whom, it is alleged, was rendered with planning and logistical support from Jeppesen. The other three plaintiffs, Ahmed Agiza, Abou Elkassim Britel and Binyam Mohamed, remain in custody in Egypt, Morocco and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, respectively. All five say they were subjected to an array of physical and mental abuse—ranging from sleep deprivation to electric shock torture—at the hands of their captors.

This is the second time the ACLU has challenged extraordinary rendition in open court. The first case was that of Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen who, in 2003, the CIA rendered to Afghanistan while El-Masri was vacationing in Macedonia. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3499/extraordinary_rendition_on_trial/

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Extraordinary Rendition Was Started by Bill Clinton

Outsourced torture. How nice.

[pat_k]

4. No, it wasn't.

Under Clinton, rendition was pursuant to a court indictment or finding of guilty in the destination country.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. So How Is That Not Extraordinary Rendition?

Taking Egypt's word that the person they want to torture is guilty, without US judicial oversight, is awful, awful.

[pat_k]

9. No comparison.

Harvard Human Rights Journal
Volume 19
Spring 2006

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss19/weissbrodt.shtml">Extraordinary Rendition: A Human Rights Analysis

Under the Clinton administration, most extraordinary renditions appeared to be subject to strict procedures. First, the receiving country had to have an outstanding arrest warrant for the person.{11} Second, each extraordinary rendition was subject to extensive administrative scrutiny before it was approved by senior government officials.{12} Third, the local government was notified.{13} Further, the CIA was required to obtain an assurance from the receiving government that the individual would not be ill-treated.{14}. . .

Annals of Justice
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6">Outsourcing Torture
The secret history of America’s "extraordinary rendition" program.
by Jane Mayer February 14, 2005

. . .Rendition was originally carried out on a limited basis, but after September 11th, when President Bush declared a global war on terrorism, the program expanded beyond recognition -- becoming, according to a former C.I.A. official, "an abomination." What began as a program aimed at a small, discrete set of suspects -- people against whom there were outstanding foreign arrest warrants -- came to include a wide and ill-defined population that the Administration terms "illegal enemy combatants.". . .

From Clinton's Presidential Decision Directive 39 (http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm">PDD 39, June 1995)

. . .When terrorists wanted for violation of U.S. law are at large overseas, their return for prosecution shall be a matter of the highest priority. … If we do not receive adequate cooperation from a state that harbors a terrorist whose extradition we are seeking, we shall take appropriate measures to induce cooperation. Return of suspects by force may be effected without the cooperation of the host government, consistent with the procedures outlined in NSD-77, which shall remain in effect. . .

(BTW, Clinton didn't "start it." NSD-77 was issued by Poppi Bush.)

The strategic importance of Egypt over the decades can't be overestimated. When Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David accords in 1978, our interests become interconnected. Egypt's role as stakeholder and partner in the peace process was confirmed in the 1993 Declaration of Principles (http://www.fmep.org/documents/Oslo_Accords.html">Oslo Accords)

Article XII:
Liaison and co-operation with Jordan and Egypt:

The two parties will invite the Governments of Jordan and Egypt to participate in establishing further liaison and co-operation arrangements between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian representatives, on the one hand, and the Governments of Jordan and Egypt, on the other hand, to promote co-operation between them.

These arrangements will include the constitution of a Continuing Committee that will decide by agreement on the modalities of admission of persons displaced from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, together with necessary measures to prevent disruption and disorder. Other matters of common concern will be dealt with by this Committee.

Clinton was passionately committed to doing whatever he could to make the two-state solution a reality. That goal required a concerted effort to build good will and gain leverage with Egypt. The 1995 rendition agreement between the US and Egypt advanced those ends.

The first rendition carried out under that agreement was Egyptian national Talaat Fouad Qassem, who had been tried in absentia and sentenced to death for his involvement in the assassination of Anwar Sadat.

Qassem had been granted asylum in Denmark. (Denmark grants asylum to persons who would risk the death penalty if deported, and since Qassem had been sentenced, death was more than a "risk"). He was therefore out of reach of Egyptian justice until he traveled to Croatia in 1995, where he was arrested by local police, turned over to the CIA, and then handed him over to the Egyptian authorities who carried out the sentence.

Given the context, the significance of the action -- turning over a a man sentenced to death for his role in the assasination of Sadat -- should be clear.

Rendition under Clinton was a rarely used "extraordinary" option of last resort. It was used only to deal with known fugitives charged in conjunction with terroristic acts. The primary purpose was to bring fugitives to justice http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2000/2466.htm">in U.S. Courts. But whether the fugitive was to be handed over to authorities in the USA or in another nation, the process was subject to strict guidelines. Each case was subject to the scrutiny and approval of an interagency committee of officials from State, NSA, CIA, FBI, DOD. The entire program was open to Congressional oversight.

Until the Bush-kid's war criminal regime took over, taking any person by force without a legitimate arrest warrant for the purpose of interrogation or detention was forbidden.

To compare the design and use of the program under Clinton and the arbitrary seizing, indefinite imprisonment, torture, and unconstitutional rejection of oversight or scrutiny of any kind that goes under the label "extraordinary rendition" in Bush's world "is awful, awful."

[Pavulon]

7. Goes back to ww2

not like we just started this stuff recently..

[MannyGoldstein]

8. I Believe That Clinton Was The Very First

Do you have evidence showing otherwise?

[pat_k]

10. No, he wasn't

Rendering (forceably taking a fugative without the cooperation of the state or nation harboring the fugative) in order to bring the fugitive to justice, has a long history.

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/rendition701/updates/updates.html
. . .
Rendition began in 1883 when Frederick Ker was kidnapped in Peru by the Pinkerton Detective Agency and rendered back to Chicago to face trial for grand larceny. The tactic was endorsed by the Supreme Court (Ker v. Illinois). These renditions, like the case of Mir Aimal Kansi from Pakistan in 1997, were renditions to courts of law.

Rendition under Clinton was a rarely used "extraordinary" option of last resort. It was used only to deal with known fugitives charged in conjunction with terroristic acts. The primary purpose was to bring fugitives to justice in U.S. Courts. But whether the fugitive was to be handed over to authorities in the USA or in another nation, the process was subject to strict guidelines. An arrest warrant from a legitimate charging authority was mandatory. Each case was subject to the scrutiny and approval of an interagency committee of officials from State, NSA, CIA, FBI, DOD. The entire program was open to Congressional oversight.

Bush's program of arbitrary and unilateral kidnapping, secretly and indefinitely holding in CIA or "friendly" prisons in order to subject to interrogation and torture is, as a former C.I.A. official, labeled it, "an abomination."

For more on the topic, see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2822503&mesg_id=2824219">Reply #9, above

[pat_k]

11. 1st rendition to face charges 1883. Bush's abomination of the process new.

Pre-Bush
"Render fugative to justice"

Post-Bush
"Render who I say to secretly and indefinitely hold and torture"

Details in Reply #5 and #9

[L. Coyote]

2. K & R & Impeach two too

thanks for the posting

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[wildbilln864]

6. TTGP! n/t