<html>
<body>
<font size=3><br>
Le Monde diplomatique <br><br>
-----------------------------------------------------<br><br>
April 2005<br><br>
THE SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE DOSSIER<br><br>
United States: trade in torture<br>
___________________________________________________________<br><br>
This is a story of private jets flying out
of Germany, of<br>
kidnappings on European streets, and of torture. It
has a cast<br>
of lawyers, spies, suspected terrorists, innocent bystanders
and<br>
an ex-CIA boss who believes that human rights is a very
flexible<br>
concept'.<br><br>
by Stephen Grey<br>
___________________________________________________________<br><br>
ASWEDISH immigration lawyer, Kjell Jönsson, was
on the phone<br>
to a client, asylum seeker Mohamed al-Zery from
Egypt, on the<br>
afternoon of 18 December 2001. "Suddenly
there was a voice<br>
coming in, saying to al-Zery to end the
telephone<br>
conversation," Jönsson recalls. "It
was the Swedish police,<br>
who had arrested him."<br><br>
Jönsson had requested the Swedish government to
promise that<br>
there would be no quick decision on Zery's
application for<br>
refugee status: he feared that Zery would be
tortured if sent<br>
back to Cairo. But Zery was expelled in the
shortest time<br>
that Jönsson had encountered in 30 years of
asylum work.<br><br>
Five hours after the arrest of Zery and another
Egyptian,<br>
Ahmed Agiza, both were deported from Stockholm's
Brömma<br>
airport. It was not revealed for another two
years that there<br>
had been a US plane at the airport, plus a team
of US agents<br>
who, it has been claimed, picked up the
suspects, manacled<br>
their wrists and ankles, dressed them in orange
overalls,<br>
drugged them, and bundled them into the
plane.<br><br>
Jönsson said the US team "were wearing
black hoods and they<br>
had no uniforms; they were wearing jeans. The
Swedish<br>
security police described them as very
professional." The<br>
whole operation took less than 10 minutes.
"It was obvious<br>
that they have done things like this
before."<br><br>
The events, including the presence of the US
agents, were<br>
kept quiet for months. But in response to
concern in Sweden,<br>
its parliament has set up an inquiry and already
released<br>
documents that confirm what happened. In one,
the head of the<br>
deportation operation with the Swedish security
agency, Arne<br>
Andersson, said they had problems obtaining a
plane that<br>
night and turned to the CIA: "In the end we
accepted an offer<br>
from our American friends . . . in getting
access to a plane<br>
that had direct over-flight permits over all of
Europe and<br>
could do the deportation in a very quick
way."<br><br>
When agreeing to the transfer of the prisoners
to Egypt, the<br>
Swedish government had sought and obtained
diplomatic<br>
assurances that both men would not be tortured
and would<br>
receive regular consular visits from Swedish
diplomats in<br>
Cairo. They received such visits in jail. The
authorities<br>
told the Swedish parliament and a United Nations
committee<br>
that the prisoners had made no complaints. But
they had -<br>
right from the first visit, they protested that
they had been<br>
severely tortured. Jönsson says Zery was
tortured repeatedly<br>
for almost two months. "He was kept in a
very cold, very<br>
small cell and he was beaten; the most painful
torture was .<br>
. . where electrodes were put to all sensitive
parts of his<br>
body many times, under surveillance by a medical
doctor."<br><br>
Zery has now been freed, and has not been
charged with any<br>
crime. But he is banned from leaving Egypt or
from speaking<br>
openly about his time in prison. Agiza remains
in an Egyptian<br>
prison. His mother, Hamida Shalibai, who has
visited him many<br>
times, said in Cairo: "When he arrived in
Egypt, they took<br>
him, hooded and handcuffed, to a building. He
was led to an<br>
underground facility, going down a staircase.
Then, they<br>
started interrogation, and torture. As soon as
he was asked a<br>
question and he replied, I don't know', they
would apply<br>
electric shocks to his body, and beat him . . .
During the<br>
first month of interrogation, he was naked, and
not given any<br>
clothes. He almost froze to
death."<br><br>
The confirmation that US agents were involved in
the Swedish<br>
case provided the first concrete evidence that
since 9/11 the<br>
US has been involved in organising a worldwide
traffic in<br>
prisoners. Official and journalistic
investigations show that<br>
the US has systematically organised the
repatriation of<br>
Islamic militants to countries in the Arab world
and East<br>
Asia where they can be imprisoned and
interrogated using<br>
methods forbidden to US agents. Some call it
torture by<br>
proxy. Prisoners have been captured and
transported by the US<br>
not only from Afghanistan and Iraq, but from
Bosnia, Croatia,<br>
Macedonia, Albania, Libya, Sudan, Kenya, Zambia,
Gambia,<br>
Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia.<br><br>
The official term, coined by the CIA, is
"extraordinary<br>
rendition". No serving US official will
discuss it in public.<br>
But a former senior official of the CIA, who
left the agency<br>
last November, has provided a detailed and
candid<br>
explanation. Michael Scheuer, who in the late
1990s headed<br>
the unit tasked with hunting down Osama bin
Laden, was<br>
interviewed for a BBC Radio programme, File on
Four. He<br>
confirmed the Swedish case was part of a much
wider system.<br><br>
Scheuer said the CIA invented rendition because
it was<br>
ordered by the White House to deal with al-Qaida
but had few<br>
options on what to do with terrorists it
captured. "The<br>
practice of capturing people and taking them to
third<br>
countries arose because the executive branch
assigned to us<br>
the task of dismantling and disrupting and
detaining<br>
terrorist cells and terrorist individuals,"
he said. "And<br>
basically, when the CIA came back and said to
the<br>
policymaker, where do you want to take them, the
answer was -<br>
that's your job. And so we developed this system
of assisting<br>
countries to capture individuals overseas and
bring them back<br>
to the particular country where they are wanted
by the legal<br>
system."<br><br>
Among those at the centre of investigations into
rendition is<br>
a lawyer at the Centre for Constitutional
Rights, Barbara<br>
Olshansky. She is examining modern cases and how
rendition is<br>
being justified legally. She believes the US is
not only<br>
using third countries to interrogate prisoners
but also its<br>
own offshore jail facilities run and operated by
the CIA. She<br>
says that for more than 100 years the US seized
fugitives<br>
outside its jurisdiction to bring them back to
the US to face<br>
justice. General Manuel Noriega, the former
president of<br>
Panama, was one high-profile example (1). That
was ordinary<br>
rendition.<br><br>
After the CIA began to fight al-Qaida, and
especially since<br>
9/11, extraordinary rendition emerged; the
prisoner was<br>
captured, not for return to the US, but for
transfer<br>
elsewhere. "Rendition started in the
1880s," Olshansky says.<br>
"The US would always use any measure to get
an individual<br>
back to be tried in front of a court here . . .
Now this<br>
entire idea has been turned on its head. We now
have<br>
extraordinary rendition, which means the US is
capturing<br>
people and sending them to countries for
interrogation under<br>
torture: rendering people for the purpose of
extracting<br>
information. There is no planned justice at the
end."<br><br>
Surprisingly, the CIA and other US agencies
often use private<br>
executive jets to transfer prisoners. I obtained
the<br>
confidential flight logs of a long-range
Gulfstream V jet at<br>
the centre of the traffic. Since 2001 the plane
has been to<br>
49 destinations outside the US and has
criss-crossed the<br>
world. It made frequent visits to Jordan, Egypt,
Saudi<br>
Arabia, Morocco and Uzbekistan, all destinations
from where<br>
the US has been repatriating prisoners.<br><br>
The white jet, which has been photographed by
plane spotters,<br>
has no marking except its US civilian
registration number,<br>
until recently N379P. I have seen documentary
evidence that<br>
it was the plane used to fly the Egyptians from
Sweden. In<br>
October 2001 witnesses saw it in Karachi,
Pakistan, when a<br>
group of masked men deported a terrorist suspect
to Jordan.<br><br>
According to a former covert officer with the
CIA, Robert<br>
Baer, who has seen the flight logs, the jet is
definitely<br>
involved in renditions. "The ultimate
destinations of these<br>
flights are places that are involved in
torture," he says.<br>
Baer, who worked for the CIA in the Middle East
for 21 years<br>
until he left in the mid-1990s, said such
civilian jets were<br>
useful to the CIA because there were no military
markings.<br>
"You can run these things out of shelf
companies. You can set<br>
them up quickly, dismantle them when they are
exposed; you<br>
can do it overnight - change the airplane if you
have to.<br>
It's fairly standard practice."<br><br>
Baer says rendition is about more than sending
terrorists to<br>
be locked up in prison. Each country has its own
value. "If<br>
you send a prisoner to Jordan you get a better
interrogation.<br>
If you send a prisoner to Egypt you will
probably never see<br>
him again; the same with Syria." Countries
such as Syria<br>
might seem to be US enemies but remain allies in
the secret<br>
war against Islamic militancy. Baer says:
"The simple rule in<br>
the Middle East is my enemy's enemy is my friend
. . . that's<br>
the way it works. All of these countries are
suffering in one<br>
way or another from Islamic fundamentalism,
militant Islam."<br>
For years the Syrians have offered to work with
the US<br>
against Islamic militancy. "So at least
until 11 September<br>
these offers were turned down. We generally
avoided the<br>
Egyptians and the Syrians because they were so
brutal."<br><br>
Baer believes the CIA has been carrying out
renditions for<br>
years, but they became bigger and more
systematic after 9/11.<br>
He says hundreds of prisoners, more than were
sent to<br>
Guantánamo, may have been sent by the US to
Middle Eastern<br>
prisons and that 9/11 had "justified
scrapping the Geneva<br>
Convention" and was the end of "our
rule of law as we knew it<br>
in the West".<br><br>
Some defenders of rendition inside the US
administration view<br>
its purpose as the removal of terrorists from
the streets.<br>
After a terrorist suspect has been sent back to
Egypt, the US<br>
takes no interest in what happens. But the case
of an<br>
Australian suspect, Mamdouh Habib, indicates
that renditions<br>
are also aimed at collecting intelligence, which
can be<br>
extracted with torture, forbidden to US agents.
Habib, a<br>
former coffee shop manager from Sydney, was
arrested in<br>
Pakistan, close to the Afghan border, a month
after 9/11.<br><br>
He was handed over to US agents, who flew him to
Cairo, where<br>
he was tortured for six months, according to his
US lawyer,<br>
Professor Joe Margulies, of the MacArthur
Justice Centre of<br>
the University of Chicago. Margulies says:
"Mr Habib<br>
describes routine beatings. He was taken into a
room and<br>
handcuffed and the room was gradually filled
with water until<br>
the water was just beneath his chin. Can you
imagine the<br>
terror of knowing you can't escape?" On
another occasion, he<br>
was suspended from a wall. "His feet rested
on a drum with a<br>
metal bar through it. And when they passed an
electric<br>
current on the drum he got a jolt of electricity
and he had<br>
to move his feet, and he was left suspended by
his hands. And<br>
it went on until he fainted."<br><br>
Under this interrogation, Margulies, says, Habib
confessed to<br>
his involvement with al-Qaida and readily signed
"every<br>
document they put in front of
him".<br><br>
He was transferred back to US custody, sent to
Afghanistan<br>
and then to Guantánamo. The confessions he
signed in Egypt<br>
were used against him in military tribunals.
According to<br>
Margulies: "Those combatant status review
tribunals relied on<br>
the evidence secured in Egypt as a basis to
detain Mr Habib."<br><br>
After Margulies and others lodged public
protests over his<br>
torture, Habib was freed from Guantánamo in
January and flown<br>
to Australia, where the government said he would
not be<br>
charged with any crime, although intelligence
officials there<br>
continue to accuse him of involvement with
al-Qaida.<br><br>
Most prisoners sent by the US to jails in the
Middle East are<br>
not free to reveal their treatment. But a
Canadian citizen,<br>
Maher Arar, a mobile phone technician rendered
to a Syrian<br>
jail by the US, is now free to speak. His story
supports the<br>
assertion that prisoners are sent abroad to be
questioned. In<br>
September 2002 Arar, returning home from a
holiday in<br>
Tunisia, was changing planes at JFK airport in
New York. He<br>
had often visited and worked in the US, so he
expected no<br>
problems. But he was taken to an interrogation
room and<br>
eventually an immigration holding centre, the
Metropolitan<br>
Detention Centre in Brooklyn.<br><br>
It became clear that the reason for his arrest
was<br>
information passed from Canada to the US. Canada
was secretly<br>
investigating a terrorist suspect in Ottawa, and
Arar had<br>
used the suspect's name as an emergency contact
when he<br>
signed a lease on a flat. Although he is a
Syrian national by<br>
birth, Arar is a citizen of Canada and has lived
there for 17<br>
years. He was surprised to be asked questions in
New York<br>
that could easily be dealt with in
Ottawa.<br><br>
Twelve days after his arrest, Arar was woken at
3am to be<br>
told he was being removed from the US. He was
driven to New<br>
Jersey and, in chains, put aboard an executive
jet. "I<br>
thought when they put me on this private jet
with its leather<br>
seats, who am I for them to do that? What kind
of information<br>
could I offer them? So when they fed me this
nice dinner, I<br>
thought of the tradition in the Muslim world
called Eid,<br>
where they slaughter an animal, and before they
slaughter the<br>
animal they feed him. That's exactly what I
thought when I<br>
was in the plane. I was always thinking how I
could avoid<br>
torture, because at that point I realised that
the only<br>
reason why they were sending me somewhere was to
be tortured<br>
for them to get information. I was 100% sure
about that."<br><br>
After two stops for fuel, the plane arrived in
Amman, Jordan,<br>
and Arar was taken by road to Damascus, to the
headquarters<br>
of the Syrian secret police. He says he was
placed in a cell<br>
little bigger than a coffin and was kept there
for more than<br>
10 months. His fears of torture were realised.
"The<br>
interrogator said: Do you know what this is?'. I
said: Yes,<br>
it's a cable' and he told me: Open your right
hand.' I opened<br>
my right hand and he hit me like crazy. And the
pain was so<br>
painful, and of course I started crying and then
he told me<br>
to open my left hand, and I opened it and he
missed, then hit<br>
my wrist. And then he asked me questions. If he
does not<br>
think you are telling the truth, then he hits
again. An hour<br>
or two later he put me in this room where
sometimes I could<br>
hear people being tortured."<br><br>
After three days short of a year in Syrian
custody, Arar was<br>
released and flown home to Ottawa. No charges
have ever been<br>
laid against him by Canada or Syria. In Canada
his case has<br>
caused a political outcry and there is a public
inquiry. Like<br>
many modern torture victims, Arar has no
physical scars.<br>
Professional interrogators are too clever. His
scars are<br>
psychological.<br><br>
But the head of Amnesty International in Canada,
Alex Neve,<br>
is convinced that Arar is telling the truth:
"I believe it<br>
for a number of reasons. I interviewed him in
considerable<br>
detail, and in the course of my many years of
work with<br>
Amnesty International I have interviewed torture
survivors<br>
here in Canada, in refugee camps, individuals
who have just<br>
been released from jail cells; and I found his
experience to<br>
be consistent and credible with what I have
known and learned<br>
and experienced at other
interviews."<br><br>
Who is responsible for this system of rendition,
and who in<br>
Washington authorised it? At the Fall's Church,
Virginia,<br>
home of Michael Scheuer, we spoke about the
tactics of the<br>
war on terror and about why, when he headed the
Osama bin<br>
Laden unit at the CIA, they developed rendition
as a tactic<br>
against al-Qaida. Scheuer is outspoken - while
at the CIA he<br>
wrote two critical books (published anonymously)
about<br>
anti-terror activities. But he has never before
been so<br>
candid about such a sensitive matter.<br><br>
Scheuer insists that every rendition operation
was approved<br>
by lawyers: "There is a large legal
department within the<br>
CIA, and there is a section of the department of
justice that<br>
is involved in legal interpretations for
intelligence work,<br>
and there is a team of lawyers at the national
security<br>
council. And on all of these things those
lawyers are<br>
involved in one way or another and have signed
off on the<br>
procedure. The idea that somehow this is a rogue
operation<br>
that someone has dreamed up is just
absurd." Scheuer recalls<br>
that when he organised such operations, the
authority had to<br>
come from director of central intelligence or
his assistant<br>
director. "So basically the number one and
two men in the<br>
intelligence community are the ones who sign
off."<br><br>
Scheuer says that with each rendition, he is
convinced that<br>
"these people deserved to be off the
street". But mistakes<br>
would happen, as they always did, and innocents
might be<br>
captured. "It is impossible not to have a
mistake in the<br>
business of espionage and intelligence," he
says. "There was<br>
never anything flip or blasé about the way this
was<br>
approached. It was a deadly serious business,
and if we were<br>
wrong, we were wrong. But the evidence pointed
us toward what<br>
we did."<br><br>
Scheuer has few qualms about the danger that
such men might<br>
be tortured: "The bottom line is getting
anyone off the<br>
street who you're confident has been involved or
is planning<br>
to be involved in operations that could kill
Americans is a<br>
worthwhile activity."<br><br>
Even if he might be tortured? "It wouldn't
be us torturing<br>
them. And I also think that there is a lot of
Hollywood<br>
involved in our portrayal of torture in Egypt
and in Saudi<br>
Arabia. It's rather hypocritical to worry about
what the<br>
Egyptians do to people who are terrorists and
not condemn the<br>
Israelis for what they do to people they deem
terrorists.<br>
Human rights is a very flexible concept. It kind
of depends<br>
on how hypocritical you want to be on a
particular day."<br><br>
To be fair to Scheuer, he has concerns about
rendition as a<br>
long-term tactic. He believes that dictatorial
regimes such<br>
as Egypt and Jordan cause Islamic militancy, so
it makes<br>
little strategic sense to be working closely
with them. "Any<br>
kind of a detainee capture is a technical
success, but in the<br>
strategic sense we are losing, and one of the
main reasons is<br>
because of our support for dictatorships in the
Muslim<br>
world."<br><br>
But, he says, the US has little option about
what to do with<br>
these prisoners. Politicians do not want
terrorists brought<br>
back to US soil and dealt with in US courts.
"We're in a lot<br>
of positions around the world where we don't
have a lot of<br>
options, and sometimes you have to work with the
devil." As<br>
long as US policymakers did not decide how to
deal with<br>
prisoners under the US legal system, the CIA had
no choice<br>
but "do what you can with what you
have".<br><br>
Scheuer estimates that there have been about 100
CIA<br>
renditions of Sunni terrorists. Others,
including Robert<br>
Baer, think the figure is much higher and that
in the<br>
post-9/11 world the US department of defence
under Donald<br>
Rumsfeld is now in the business of moving
prisoners around<br>
the world, while the US military has shifted
hundreds of<br>
prisoners to jails in the Middle East.<br><br>
The US department of defence and the CIA
declined to speak<br>
about rendition and its justification. I did
speak to a<br>
vice-president of the American Enterprise
Institute, a<br>
think-tank linked to the Bush administration.
Danielle Pletka<br>
was a former senior staffer on the Senate
foreign relations<br>
committee. "I'm not a big fan of
torture," she says. She does<br>
not endorse Syria or the way Egypt runs its
prisons or<br>
security system."Unfortunately, there are
times in war when<br>
it is necessary to do things in a way that is
absolutely and<br>
completely abhorrent to most good, decent
people. While I<br>
don't want to say that the US has engaged
routinely in such<br>
practices, because I don't think that it is
routine by any<br>
standard . . . if it is absolutely imperative to
find<br>
something out at that moment, then it is
imperative to find<br>
something out at that moment, and Club Med is
not the place<br>
to do it."<br><br>
What is the legality of these operations? Pletka
says that,<br>
as a non-lawyer, she cannot answer such
questions. The United<br>
Nations convention against torture, ratified by
the US and<br>
endorsed by President Bush, states that "no
state shall<br>
expel, return or extradite a person to another
state where<br>
there are substantial grounds for believing that
he would be<br>
in danger of being subjected to torture".
Every year the US<br>
state department condemns and details human
rights abuse and<br>
torture in countries such as Egypt, Syria and
Saudi Arabia.<br>
Last year's report on Egypt described torture as
"common and<br>
persistent".<br><br>
So how can rendition be legal? No one at the
justice<br>
department would comment. The US legal
justification is a<br>
state secret. Official Washington's coyness
about defending<br>
rendition may have something to do with the
increased threat<br>
of being held to account in the courts. Apart
from the danger<br>
of lawsuits in US courts, there are judicial
investigations<br>
opening into alleged CIA abductions on European
soil.<br><br>
Germany has been a key base for the CIA jets.
The flight logs<br>
I have seen show frequent stops of the
Gulfstream jet, and a<br>
Boeing 737 jet used for rendition, at Frankfurt
airport.<br>
There is a judicial inquiry under way in Germany
into the<br>
case of Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen from
Ulm who<br>
claimed he was kidnapped in Skopje, Macedonia,
on 31 December<br>
2003. He was flown three weeks later to
Afghanistan and a US<br>
prison facility where, he has claimed, he was
repeatedly<br>
beaten before being released four months later
and dumped on<br>
a roadside in Albania.<br><br>
At first his claims seemed unbelievable, but
flight logs I<br>
obtained from aviation sources show clear
evidence that the<br>
CIA's Boeing 737 transported him to Skopje on 23
January<br>
2004. My documents show the plane flew in from
Majorca and<br>
then took Masri to Kabul via Baghdad. Such
evidence could put<br>
the CIA in a difficult position with its German
counterparts,<br>
who may be forced to treat the case as an
illegal kidnap.<br><br>
In Italy there is now a judicial investigation
into the<br>
kidnapping of a suspected al-Qaida activist in
Milan. It is<br>
claimed that US agents, without legal
permission, kidnapped a<br>
suspect from the streets of a close European
ally. At noon on<br>
16 February 2003 an Egyptian, Abu Omar,
disappeared in<br>
Milan's Via Guerzona during a 10-minute walk
from his home to<br>
a local mosque. An eyewitness said he was
stopped on the<br>
street by three white men, with a van drawn up
on the<br>
pavement. He had been under surveillance by
Italian<br>
authorities but they denied any role in his
disappearance.<br>
The claim is that he was seized by US agents,
taken to the US<br>
Aviano air base and flown to Egypt.<br><br>
The deputy prosecutor of Milan, Armando Spataro,
who is the<br>
magistrate investigating the case, refuses to
accuse the US<br>
but is treating the case as involuntary kidnap
and is certain<br>
that Omar is now in Egypt. If the US was
involved, would it<br>
be a crime? "If it were true, it would be a
serious breach of<br>
Italian law. It would be absolutely
illegal," he says.<br>
________________________________________________________<br><br>
(1) General Noriega, Panama's strongman and
former CIA agent<br>
linked to drug trafficking, was arrested on 3
January 1990,<br>
then extradited to Florida during the US
invasion of Panama.<br>
In a trial in dubious circumstances, he was
sentenced to 40<br>
years imprisonment in July 1992.<br><br>
<br><br>
Original text in English<br><br>
<br>
________________________________________________________<br><br>
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©
1997-2005 Le Monde diplomatique<br><br>
<<a href="http://mondediplo.com/2005/04/04usatorture" eudora="autourl">
http://MondeDiplo.com/2005/04/04usatorture</a>><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>