In the previous entry I linked to a story regarding the US’s opposition to UN rules on torture. Today there was a story in the Christian Science Monitor about how the US ships ‘terror’ suspects to countries like Egypt, Syria, and Jordan who have no problem getting their hands a little dirty. Forget about due process, forget about habeas corpus. These guys will attach car batteries to your nipples and get the information they’re looking for. It’s shameful that our government would sanction this type of behavior.
Since 9/11, according to diplomats, US officials, and press reports, several suspects have quietly been detained and sent to the Middle East:
• Abu Zubaydah, a top Al Qaeda commander, was arrested in Pakistan in March, and moved to an “undisclosed location” by the US, possibly the Middle East.
• Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni, a Pakistani arrested in Indonesia in January, was bundled aboard a CIA Gulfstream and flown from Jakarta to Egypt.
• Mahmoud bin Ahmad Assegaf, a Kuwaiti citizen and an alleged Al Qaeda financier, was arrested by the Indonesians, and then deported – also at the request of the CIA. The Kuwaiti embassy in Indonesia says it knows nothing about the case, and that it wasn’t informed that a Kuwaiti citizen had been detained.
• Mohammad Haydar Zammar, a Syrian-born German believed to have connections to the 9/11 hijackers, was detained in Morocco in June, and reportedly, the CIA arranged for him to be sent to Syria.
• In October, a Yemeni student, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, wanted in connection with the bombing of the USS Cole was turned over to the US by Pakistan and was flown to Jordan on a US-registered Gulfstream jet.
• Jabarah Mohamed Mansur, allegedly involved in an attempt to bomb the US and Israeli Embassies in Singapore, is currently being held and interrogated in Oman.
Egypt, like the US, won’t officially comment on the detainees. Perhaps because these deportations are not done through official channels or according to extradition treaties. But privately US officials confirm the practice. And Ahmed Moussa, an internal security correspondent for the state-supported Al-Ahram newspaper group in Cairo, also confirms the detentions.
We’re talking about regimes that use torture! Torture! That’s fucked up.