[News] CIA working with Palestinian security agents

[Anti-Imperialist News]

CIA working with Palestinian security agents




US agency co-operating with Palestinian 
counterparts who allegedly torture Hamas supporters in West Bank

December 22, 2009 By Ian Cobain
Source: 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/17/cia-palestinian-security-agents>The 
Guardian
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/23428

(Ramallah) -- Palestinian security agents who 
have been detaining and allegedly torturing 
supporters of the Islamist organisation Hamas in 
the West Bank have been working closely with the CIA, the Guardian has learned.

Less than a year after Barack Obama signed an 
executive order that prohibited torture and 
provided for the lawful interrogation of 
detainees in US custody, evidence is emerging the 
CIA is co-operating with security agents whose 
continuing use of torture has been widely documented by human rights groups.

The relationship between the CIA and the two 
Palestinian agencies involved - Preventive 
Security Organisation (PSO) and General 
Intelligence Service (GI) - is said by some 
western diplomats and other officials in the 
region to be so close that the American agency 
appears to be supervising the Palestinians' work.

One senior western official said: "The [Central 
Intelligence] Agency consider them as their 
property, those two Palestinian services." A 
diplomatic source added that US influence over 
the agencies was so great they could be 
considered "an advanced arm of the war on terror".

While the CIA and the Palestinian Authority (PA) 
deny the US agency controls its Palestinian 
counterparts, neither denies that they interact 
closely in the West Bank. Details of that 
co-operation are emerging as some human rights 
organisations are beginning to question whether 
US intelligence agencies may be turning a blind 
eye to abusive interrogations conducted by other 
countries' intelligence agencies with whom they 
are working. According to the Palestinian 
watchdog al-Haq, human rights in the West Bank 
and Gaza have "gravely deteriorated due to the 
spreading violations committed by Palestinian actors" this year.

Most of those held without trial and allegedly 
tortured in the West Bank have been supporters of 
Hamas, which won the Palestinian elections in 
2006 but is denounced as a terrorist organisation 
by the PA - which in turn is dominated by the 
rival Fatah political faction - and by the US and 
EU. In the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has been in 
control for more than two years, there have been 
reports of its forces detaining and torturing 
Fatah sympathisers in the same way.

Among the human rights organisations that have 
documented or complained about the mistreatment 
of detainees held by the PA in the West Bank are 
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, al-Haq 
and the Israeli watchdog B'Tselem. Even the PA's 
human rights commission has expressed "deep 
concern" over the mistreatment of detainees.

The most common complaint is that detainees are 
severely beaten and subjected to a torture known 
as shabeh, during which they are shackled and 
forced to assume painful positions for long 
periods. There have also been reports of sleep 
deprivation, and of large numbers of detainees 
being crammed into small cells to prevent rest. 
Instead of being brought before civilian courts, 
almost all the detainees enter a system of 
military justice under which they need not be 
brought before a court for six months.

According to PA officials, between 400 and 500 
Hamas sympathisers are held by the PSO and GI.

Some of the mistreatment has been so severe that 
at least three detainees have died in custody 
this year. The most recent was Haitham Amr, a 
33-year-old nurse and Hamas supporter from Hebron 
who died four days after he was detained by GI 
officials last June. Extensive bruising around 
his kidneys suggested he had been beaten to 
death. Among those who died in GI custody last 
year was Majid al-Barghuti, 42, an imam at a village near Ramallah.

While there is no evidence that the CIA has been 
commissioning such mistreatment, human rights 
activists say it would end promptly if US 
pressure was brought to bear on the Palestinian authorities.

Shawan Jabarin, general director of al-Haq, said: 
"The Americans could stop it any time. All they 
would have to do is go to [prime minister] Salam 
Fayyad and tell him they were making it an 
issue.. Then they could deal with the specifics: 
they could tell him that detainees needed to be 
brought promptly before the courts."

A diplomat in the region said "at the very least" 
US intelligence officers were aware of the 
torture and not doing enough to stop it. He 
added: "There are a number of questions for the 
US administration: what is their objective, what 
are their rules of engagement? Do they train the 
GI and PSO according to the manual which was 
established by the previous administration, 
including water-boarding? Are they in control, or are they just witnessing?"

Sa'id Abu-Ali, the PA's interior minister, 
accepted detainees had been tortured and some had 
died, but said such abuses had not been official 
policy and steps were being taken to prevent 
them. He said such abuses "happen in every 
country in the world". Abu-Ali sought initially 
to deny the CIA was "deeply involved" with the 
two Palestinian intelligence agencies responsible 
for the torture of Hamas sympathisers, but then 
conceded that links did exist. "There is a 
connection, but there is no supervision by the 
Americans," he said. "It is solely a Palestinian 
affair. But the Americans help us."

The CIA does not deny working with the PSO and GI 
in the West Bank, although it will not say what 
use it has made of intelligence extracted during 
the interrogation of Hamas supporters. But it 
denies turning what one official described as "a Nelson's eye to abuse".

The CIA's spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, denied it 
played a supervisory role over the PSO or GI. 
"The notion that this agency somehow runs other 
intelligence services ... is simply wrong," he 
said. "The CIA ... only supports, and is 
interested in, lawful methods that produce sound intelligence."

Concern about detainee abuse is growing in the 
West Bank despite an effort by the international 
community to create Palestinian institutions that 
will guarantee greater security as a first step 
towards creating a Palestinian state. More than 
half of the PA's $2.8bn (£1.66bn) budget came 
from international donors last year; more than a 
quarter was swallowed up by the ministry of the 
interior and national security. Human Rights 
Watch and al-Haq have said that in raising the 
security capacity of the PA, donor countries have 
a responsibility to ensure it observes international human rights standards.

At the heart of the international effort is the 
creation of the Palestinian national security 
force, a 7,500-strong gendarmerie trained by US, 
British, Canadian and Turkish army officers under 
the command of a US general, Keith Dayton. Many 
Palestinians blame Dayton for the mistreatment of 
Hamas sympathisers, although the general's remit 
does not extend to either of the intelligence agencies responsible.

Some in Dayton's team are said to have been 
warned by senior CIA officers that they should 
not attempt to interfere in the work of the PSO 
or GI. Privately, some of them are said to fear 
that the mistreatment of detainees, and the anger 
this is arousing among the population, may 
undermine their mission. One source said: "I know 
that Dayton and his crew are very concerned about 
what is happening in those detention centres 
because they know it can jeopardise their work."

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