UN panel to grill US on 'torture flights'
The US will be grilled by the United Nations today over its compliance with the global ban on torture, for the first time since it launched its war on terror.
The questions will focus on allegations of secret CIA prisons and flights transferring suspects for possible torture in other countries.
The UN Committee Against Torture, the global body’s watchdog for a 22-year-old treaty forbidding prisoner abuse, will quiz US officials on a series of issues ranging from Washington’s interpretation of the absolute ban on torture to its interrogation methods in prisons such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
The US, like the 140 other nations that have signed the Convention Against Torture, must submit reports to the committee to show it is applying the rules.
The US mission to the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva said it had sent a written reply to the committee’s questions, but would not comment before of its sessions with the committee today and on Monday.
Its 25-member team for the hearings will be headed by State Department legal adviser John Bellinger and includes officials from the defence, justice and homeland security departments.
“Obviously this is a difficult time for the US with numerous allegations that have been made, but we don’t shrink away from answering the questions,” Bellinger said in Brussels yesterday, where he was meeting European Union and Nato officials. “We’ve taken the process very seriously.”
In its 87-page report filed in January – four years behind schedule - Washington insisted it was “unequivocally opposed” to torture and that its commitment to the ban “remains unchanged” since the US Senate ratified the convention in October 1994.
But the Geneva-based committee, a panel of 10 independent experts who meet twice a year, said the US’ legal interpretation of torture in Department of Justice memorandums in 2002 and 2004 “seems to be much more restrictive than previous United Nations standards”.
The committee is demanding the US explain why it established secret prisons, what rules and methods of interrogation it employs, and whether the administration of US president George Bush assumes responsibility for alleged acts of torture committed by American agents outside US territory.
“In view of the numerous allegations of torture and ill-treatment of persons in detention under the jurisdiction of (the US) and the case of the Abu Ghraib prison, what specific measures have been taken to identify and remedy problems in the command and operation of those detention facilities?” the committee has asked.
It has also questioned more specifically whether there has been any “independent investigation regarding the possible responsibility of the high-ranking officials of the administration, including the CIA, the Department of Defence, the Department of Justice and the armed forces, for authorising or consenting in any way” to acts of torture.
Criticism by the UN panel brings no penalties beyond international scrutiny. The committee is expected to issue conclusions when it wraps up its session May 19.
Washington’s report said President Bush “has made clear that the US stands against and will not tolerate torture under any circumstances”.
It noted that it had a separate system of military justice for its armed forces personnel, which was responsible for handling claims of abuse from detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Allegations concerning CIA activities were currently under review by the agency’s inspector general, the report said.
Washington neither confirms nor denies allegations of secret prisons on grounds that it refuses to comment on intelligence matters.
But the committee warned that enforced disappearances of suspects “can be considered a form of torture” and asked for details on the US policy of “rendition”.
US officials have acknowledged flying up to 150 of the most serious terror suspects from one country to another, but say they receive “diplomatic assurances” from authorities that they will not use torture on the detainees they receive.
But human rights groups say some have been tortured and that the US is violating the treaty in other ways.
“Thee are certain things that are not permissible no matter what,” said Jennifer Daskal, who heads Human Rights Watch’s US advocacy program. “Torture is one of those things, and there is no justification for torture.”
