Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
CIA 'tortured and sodomised' terror suspect, human rights court rules
#1

CIA 'tortured and sodomised' terror suspect, human rights court rules

Landmark European court of human rights judgment says CIA tortured wrongly detained German citizen



The European court of human rights has ruled German citizen Khaled el-Masri was tortured by CIA agents, the first time the court has described treatment meted out by the CIA as torture. Photograph: Christian Hartmann/AP

CIA agents tortured a German citizen, sodomising, shackling, and beating him, as Macedonian state police looked on, the European court of human rights said in a historic judgment released on Thursday.
In a unanimous ruling, it also found Macedonia guilty of torturing, abusing, and secretly imprisoning Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese origin allegedly linked to terrorist organisations.
Masri was seized in Macedonia in December 2003 and handed over to a CIA "rendition team" at Skopje airport and secretly flown to Afghanistan.
It is the first time the court has described CIA treatment meted out to terror suspects as torture.
"The grand chamber of the European court of human rights unanimously found that Mr el-Masri was subjected to forced disappearance, unlawful detention, extraordinary rendition outside any judicial process, and inhuman and degrading treatment," said James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative.
He described the judgment as "an authoritative condemnation of some of the most objectionable tactics employed in the post-9/11 war on terror". It should be a wake-up call for the Obama administration and US courts, he told the Guardian. For them to continue to avoid serious scrutiny of CIA activities was "simply unacceptable", he said.
Jamil Dakwar, of the American Civil Liberties Union, described the ruling as "a huge victory for justice and the rule of law".
The use of CIA interrogation methods widely denounced as torture during the Bush administration's "war on terror" also came under scrutiny in Congress on Thursday. The US Senate's select committee on intelligence was expected to vote on whether to approve a mammoth review it has undertaken into the controversial practices that included waterboarding, stress positions, forced nudity, beatings and sleep and sensory deprivation.
The report, that runs to almost 6,000 pages based on a three-year review of more than 6m pieces of information, is believed to conclude that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" adopted by the CIA during the Bush years did not produce any major breakthroughs in intelligence, contrary to previous claims. The committee, which is dominated by the Democrats, is likely to vote to approve the report, though opposition from the Republican members may prevent the report ever seeing the light of day.
The Strasbourg court said it found Masri's account of what happened to him "to be established beyond reasonable doubt" and that Macedonia had been "responsible for his torture and ill-treatment both in the country itself and after his transfer to the US authorities in the context of an extra-judicial 'rendition'".
In January 2004, Macedonian police took him to a hotel in Skopje, where he was kept locked in a room for 23 days and questioned in English, despite his limited proficiency in that language, about his alleged ties with terrorist organisations, the court said in its judgment. His requests to contact the German embassy were refused. At one point, when he said he intended to leave, he was threatened with being shot.
"Masri's treatment at Skopje airport at the hands of the CIA rendition team being severely beaten, sodomised, shackled and hooded, and subjected to total sensory deprivation had been carried out in the presence of state officials of [Macedonia] and within its jurisdiction," the court ruled.
It added: "Its government was consequently responsible for those acts performed by foreign officials. It had failed to submit any arguments explaining or justifying the degree of force used or the necessity of the invasive and potentially debasing measures. Those measures had been used with premeditation, the aim being to cause Mr Masri severe pain or suffering in order to obtain information. In the court's view, such treatment had amounted to torture, in violation of Article 3 [of the European human rights convention]."
In Afghanistan, Masri was incarcerated for more than four months in a small, dirty, dark concrete cell in a brick factory near the capital, Kabul, where he was repeatedly interrogated and was beaten, kicked and threatened. His repeated requests to meet with a representative of the German government were ignored, said the court.
Masri was released in April 2004. He was taken, blindfolded and handcuffed, by plane to Albania and subsequently to Germany, after the CIA admited he was wrongly detained. The Macedonian government, which the court ordered must pay Masri €60,000 (£49,000) in compensation, has denied involvement in kidnapping.
UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson, described the ruling as "a key milestone in the long struggle to secure accountability of public officials implicated in human rights violations committed by the Bush administration CIA in its policy of secret detention, rendition and torture".
He said the US government must issue an apology for its "central role in a web of systematic crimes and human rights violations by the Bush-era CIA, and to pay voluntary compensation to Mr el-Masri".
Germany should ensure that the US officials involved in this case were now brought to trial.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/dec/1...or-suspect


"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx

"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.

“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Reply
#2
CIA Sodomy as an "enhanced interrogation technique".

Gives a whole new meaning to getting Fucked by The Man.....

I wonder if there's a dedicated Volkland Security War on Terror squad they fly in specially for these enhanced interrogations?
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."

Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon

"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
Reply
#3
Jan Klimkowski Wrote:CIA Sodomy as an "enhanced interrogation technique".

Gives a whole new meaning to getting Fucked by The Man.....

I wonder if there's a dedicated Volkland Security War on Terror squad they fly in specially for these enhanced interrogations?
I understand it is part of basic training.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx

"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.

“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Reply
#4
Quote:...CIA in its policy of secret detention, rendition and torture".
Hardly no longer policy or 'normal' operating procedure.....it goes on every day, all day, all over the world and seems to be increasing under Obama, if less publicized, as under Bush. Under Obama, one can also add summary execution by drone - although summary execution without any legal process has always been in the intelligence operative's bag 'o tricks. Its certainly has an 'all American' aura about it....Spy. Is saddens and sickens me no end, what my country has become - and what it has not become.....certainly, other nations also participate or turn a blind eye. Certainly a few other nations do the same thing, if on a smaller scale; but, hey! America is #1 when it comes to these horrors outlawed in the Geneva Conventions [and other International Law], the Nuremberg Principals and other such. They don't hate us for our freedoms, they just hate us with good reason. Many inside the Empire also hate what is being done, if not the Country and People, per se.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
Reply


Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Julian Assange - UN Rules in His Favour? David Guyatt 30 36,126 14-04-2019, 01:46 PM
Last Post: Dawn Meredith
  Free lynne stewart resist the destruction of democratic rights in america Magda Hassan 23 37,334 16-03-2017, 01:07 PM
Last Post: Peter Lemkin
  UK's Investigatory Powers Act allows the State to tell lies in court! Peter Lemkin 1 8,179 09-12-2016, 10:11 AM
Last Post: David Guyatt
  Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is expected to appear in a UK court tomorrow! Peter Lemkin 250 92,867 22-08-2016, 05:19 PM
Last Post: Dawn Meredith
  Some Small Measure of Justice for Victor Jara - tortured and murdered in 1973 Peter Lemkin 8 13,194 01-07-2016, 04:15 AM
Last Post: Peter Lemkin
  Obama picks centrist high court nominee; Republicans unmoved Drew Phipps 9 18,623 17-03-2016, 11:39 PM
Last Post: Lauren Johnson
  italian court convicts 23 americans kidnapping Bernice Moore 25 20,046 23-02-2016, 03:56 PM
Last Post: Carsten Wiethoff
  People Have A 'Fundamental Right' To Own Assault Weapons, Court Rules Drew Phipps 0 3,824 05-02-2016, 03:30 PM
Last Post: Drew Phipps
  Spanish court issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other officials Magda Hassan 2 5,547 16-11-2015, 05:22 PM
Last Post: Lauren Johnson
  al-Libi dies [conveniently] a few days before trial on major terror charges. Peter Lemkin 0 3,340 04-01-2015, 07:09 AM
Last Post: Peter Lemkin

Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)