The CIA's latest "ghost detainee" (renewing suspicions agency could be violating law, using torture)

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/05/22/cia_prisoner/?source=whitelist

The CIA's latest "ghost detainee"

New details confirm a CIA prisoner disappeared in U.S. custody for months, renewing suspicions the agency could be violating the law and using torture.

By Mark Benjamin


May 22, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- In late April the Pentagon announced with fanfare that Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former top advisor to Osama bin Laden, was in custody at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Although al-Hadi was "one of al-Qaida's highest ranking and experienced senior operatives" and may have been planning attacks on Western targets at the time of his capture, he would be treated humanely, the Pentagon said. Military officials had alerted the International Committee of the Red Cross that al-Hadi was in their custody, and said they would grant the Red Cross access to monitor his treatment.

But as the Pentagon also noted in late April, al-Hadi was not a new prisoner; he had been in CIA custody since the fall of 2006. And Salon has discovered that, in contrast to the protocols followed by the Pentagon, the CIA kept al-Hadi's months-long detention a secret -- not only from the public but from the Red Cross as well, raising new questions about the CIA's treatment of prisoners in the war on terrorism. While the U.S. military recently adopted new rules for interrogation in the wake of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, legal and human rights experts say the CIA may be continuing to flout the law -- potentially using abusive interrogation tactics at secret prisons known as "black sites" -- at the direction of the Bush White House.

Red Cross officials confirmed to Salon that the CIA did not alert them during the months that al-Hadi was a prisoner with the agency. "We have repeatedly asked U.S. authorities to be notified and have access to all detainees, including those held by the CIA," said Simon Schorno, a spokesman for the Red Cross in Washington. "But we did not have access to Mr. al-Hadi before his transfer . For us, that is problematic."

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[Solly Mack]

1. but let's go on pretending America doesn't torture

Because gee, if America was torturing, surely the greatest nation on earth, the country founded on liberty and freedom, on due process and justice, would hold the guilty accountable.

Surely.

Such a wonderful country would never, ever, attempt to sweep such crimes under the rug or worse - attempt to explain them away as a "few bad apples" or to justify such actions a a national security need.