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Technorati"Black Site" Survivor Relates Horrific Tale
NEW YORK - As human right lawyers sought to block U.S government efforts to stop a lawsuit against a Boeing subsidiary accused of flying detainees to "black sites" where they were tortured, a legal advocacy group published the first testimony of a victim of the Central Intelligence Agency's "enhanced interrogation" programme.
In the first-ever report of its kind, the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York University School of Law released a firsthand account of a survivor of enforced disappearance and torture at several CIA "black sites". The 63-page report, "Surviving the Darkness: Testimony from the U.S. 'Black Sites'", is an in-depth account of a former CIA detainee's experience in his own words.
The bone-chilling narrative tells the story of Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, a Yemeni national who spent more than a year and a half in the CIA's secret detention programme. He was never charged with a terrorism-related crime.
The CHRGJ charges that Bashmilah was "illegally detained by the Jordanian intelligence service in October 2003, tortured into signing a false confession, and then handed over to an American rendition team."
The group says he spent the next 18 months in the U.S. secret detention network -- in sites believed to be in Afghanistan and possibly Eastern Europe. In May 2005, he was transferred to the custody of the Yemen government, which held him in proxy detention at the behest of the U.S. until he was put on trial and finally released in March 2006.
Bashmilah's story was made public as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed legal papers opposing the CIA's attempt to throw out a lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. for its participation in the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" programme.
The ACLU charged that the U.S. government is improperly invoking the "state secrets" privilege to avoid judicial scrutiny of this unlawful policy.
Steven Watt, an attorney with the ACLU's Human Rights Programme, told IPS, "Five men have been brutally abused with the help of a U.S. corporation, and they are entitled to their day in court."
"Jeppesen must not be given a free pass for its profitable participation in a torture programme," he said. "And the government should not be allowed to use the national security defence as a way to cover up its mistakes or, worse, its egregious abuses of human rights."
The ACLU filing comes in a lawsuit brought on behalf of five victims of the rendition programme who were kidnapped and secretly transferred by the CIA to U.S.-run overseas prisons or foreign intelligence agencies where they were interrogated and tortured.
According to the lawsuit, Jeppesen knowingly provided flight planning and essential logistical support to aircraft and crew used by the CIA for the clandestine rendition flights.
After the lawsuit was filed, the U.S. government intervened to seek its dismissal, contending that further litigation of the case would be harmful to national security. But the ACLU contends that the information needed to pursue this lawsuit, including details about the rendition programme, is already in the public domain.
It adds, "Jeppesen's involvement in the programme is also a matter of public record. It has been confirmed by extensive documentary evidence and eyewitness testimony, including the sworn declaration of a former senior Jeppesen employee, which was submitted in support of the ACLU filing."
In recent years, the government has asserted the once-rare "state secrets" claim with increasing regularity in an attempt to throw out lawsuits and justify withholding information from the public not only about the rendition programme, but also about illegal wiretapping, torture, and other breaches of U.S. and international law.
It has been 50 years since the United States Supreme Court last reviewed the use of the "state secrets" privilege. The Supreme Court recently refused to review the "state secrets" privilege in a lawsuit brought by Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen also represented by the ACLU, who was kidnapped and rendered to detention, interrogation, and torture in a CIA "black site" prison in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, more than 250 people once held in Iraqi prisons, including Abu Ghraib, have filed suit against a U.S. military contractor for alleged torture of detainees. The Centre for Constitutional Rights filed the lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages against CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Virginia.
The complaint alleges that CACI interrogators who were sent to Iraqi prisons directed and engaged in torture between 2003 and 2004. The lawsuit charges that the detainees were repeatedly beaten, sodomised, threatened with rape, kept naked in their cells, subjected to electric shock and attacked by unmuzzled dogs, among other humiliations.
The court action also names two CACI employees -- Stephen Stefanowski, known as "Big Steve", and Daniel Johnson, known as "DJ" -- accusing them of participating in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The suit alleges that the two CACI contractors directed Corporal Charles Graner and Sergeant Ivan Frederick. Graner was sentenced to 10 years in prison for this role in the Abu Ghraib scandal; Frederick is serving an eight-year jail term.
"These corporate guys worked in a conspiracy with those military guys to torture people," said Susan Burke, the lead attorney in the case.
"And now the military have been held accountable, but the company guys and the company have not been," she said.
The legal status of U.S. private contractors in Iraq and elsewhere abroad remains cloudy. The Iraqi government says they should be subject to Iraqi law, a position rejected by the U.S. It remains unclear whether they are subject to U.S. law. No U.S. court has yet decided a relevant case, though lawsuits have been brought against a number of contractors, including Blackwater, whose employees are accused of killing 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians in a shooting incident in September.
In the CACI case, to the surprise of some legal observers, the government did not intervene on behalf of the contractors and the court ruled that the litigation could go forward.
In a related development, the New York Times reported Wednesday that Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies, "apparently trying to avoid acknowledging an elaborate secret detention system, have quietly set free nearly 100 men suspected of links to terrorism, few of whom were charged."
Human rights groups in Pakistan say those released are some of the nearly 500 Pakistanis presumed to have disappeared into the hands of the Pakistani intelligence agencies cooperating with Washington's fight against terrorism since 2001.
The Times reported that no official reason has been given for the releases. But it quoted Pakistani sources as saying that as pressure has mounted to bring the cases into the courts, "the government has decided to jettison some suspects and spare itself the embarrassment of having to reveal that people have been held on flimsy evidence in the secret system."
Among those pressing to bring the cases into court was the chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. He was dismissed by President Pervez Musharraf and remains in detention, although Musharraf last Saturday lifted the state of emergency he imposed in November.
The Times reported that the prisoner releases were "particularly galling to lawyers" because Musharraf had accused the courts of being soft on terrorists, and had used that claim as one justification for imposing emergency rule.
© 2007 Inter Press Service
33 Comments so far
Show AllI figure, "EXPECT IT".
" Twister22 December 20th, 2007 1:44 pm
CIA Torture Jet wrecks with 4 Tons of COCAINE
..."
I HAVE WONDERED what comes across the world on USN ships and large USAF and/or Army planes from Afghanistan, f.e., in closed crates that can hold a LOT and which no one can see the insides of, too.
The "trick" about these flights is they don't go through customs, so no border checks, and military officials of the black market world, who definitely do exist, could have some criminally complicit soldiers filling these crates with "goodies"; and once closed, then they could have any soldiers load the crates on the transports without having a clue what's inside the crates.
That is all REAL in terms of what they can do. The question is whether or not they do this. And I suspect that they probably do.
" urthsong December 21st, 2007 1:18 am
After a few hundred years, a lot of us, white and black, have Native American genetic lines as well. ..."
NOT that I would have anything at all against that applying to my family, but I DOUBT that a lot of Americans have First Nations Peoples genetic lines in them. MOST Americans surely do not.
However, if you verified statistics to prove otherwise, then I'll gladly read these.
Yet I will doubt many Americans have this, and I guess a probably good argument for this perspective is that around 97-98% of the First Nations Peoples were all murdered by the invading Europeans long ago; estimated to have originally numbered around 10MN, and after all of the killing of them, around 270,000 left, many if not most or all of them required to live on reservations which means very little intermingling with the Euro-American invaders and expropriators.
Probably more Canadians, and speaking proportionally now, intermarried with FNP of what was also brutally made Canada, under the European invaders, than Euro-Americans did; and my ancestry, the Canadian part of it, that is, after France, dates back to 1460 to 1490, the first to arrive having come in 1460, and three others by 149x. We have no FNP in us, and my brother has done the whole genealogical study, going back to France prior to the first ancestors who came to Ca. And it's a French family lineage primarly in Quebec, where there long were entirely friendly relations with the FNP of this province; until around two centuries ago, when the Francos began to adopt Anglo ways towards FNP.
Canada formally has the Metis, and I'm not sure, but believe they're mostly French-FNP lineage.
It's of course off topic though.
urthsong,
"We the People have been victims, victimizers and victims again depending on who holds power. Only actions from a shared moral base, when we are able to see and understand what we do, can save our nation from itself."
Very well said urthsong.
state secrets. s.s. S.S. Schutzstaffel. Defense Legion. Homeland Security. Praetorian Guard. Blackwater Security. Just a little exercise in free association.
No doubt one more Arab in the growing legions of Arab's who hate our guts. Who will no doubt become what he was falsely accused of being. Because the hatred runs so deep in the region it's become a raging river. What kind of a monster have we sired?????
State secrets? How the f--k can "state secrets" immunity apply to private, civilian contractors? Once private contractors know about it, by definition it's no longer a "state" secret.
On a different topic, the plane crash that Twister mentions: apparently the plane has changed ownership a couple times since it was used for renditions.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/20060.html
State secrets and torture. Stuff like this always goes hand-in -hand and is always in your best interests.......well, until it's not but then you're the enemy.
Best we all get on with restoring our own government. This is an inside job. Which reminds me, S. 1959, partial title "...Homegrown Terrorism..." is in imminent danger of passage. It passed the House easily fooling the legislators as to the wording which is so broadly written that a peace activist or an activist for better working conditions or clean air and water could be arrested for terrorism with the vague supposition that this political activism might intend to be achieved violently. If this is passed, Bush can start rounding up and permanently imprisoning Americans just as they have done with Muslim suspects.
Comrades We're glad Mohamed survived to tell the tale. Now what? Do we really have a system here of global justice? Let's hope so and happy holidays... E
Comrades We're glad Mohamed survived to tell the tall. Now what? Do we really have a system here of global justice? Let's hope so and happy holidays... E
Hey, here's an idea: now that Bush's tactics equal or exceed those of Saddam Hussein's in torturing innocent people, and there's no question that we have WMD's, perhaps Hugo Chavez will send in the Venezuelan troops to liberate us and lay a little extreme prejudice on the Leader of the Free World. Only this time, unlike last, the troops WILL be met with cheers and flowers AND they actually will leave when democracy has been restored, since the U.S. has nothing they need, like oil.
After a few hundred years, a lot of us, white and black, have Native American genetic lines as well. The struggle for corporate control of our government, aka fascism, has been around longer than the Boston Tea Party. We the People have been victims, victimizers and victims again depending on who holds power. Only actions from a shared moral base, when we are able to see and understand what we do, can save our nation from itself. The union movement, the Suffrage movements for slaves and women, the civil rights movement, every right and act to attain justice are our common heritage are the shared history we can point to with pride. Right now, those who hold the reins of power, illegitimately as they were never elected, have nothing to be proud of. And those who accept the "new realities" should also hang their heads in shame. But those of us millions of citizens working to restore democracy and justice and constitutional law have nothing to be ashamed of. For us, the integrity of that shared moral base continues intact. This is how we can come together. The greatest rift has been created by convincing many decent conservative voters who share this common moral base with liberals/progressives that it is not so.
reply to Doom n Gloom December 20th, 2007 2:50
Your number appears to exceed possiblity, but never the less Native Americans were quite adept at killing each other for millenia before European contact. The problem is in some human's natures regardless of ethnicity or race, and the solution lies in the societal structures the wisest of any culture set in place to control those.
I wouldn't trade living in a working constitutional democracy for enduring being in any pre-columbian tribal situation, and if Native Americans are honest, neither would they.
This IPS story touches on many of the atrocities of the Bush administration, and the common thread is that they have turned over national security to private interests who in turn profit from human rights abuse. The government simply acts as their legal representative, and uses "national security" as a blanket excuse. If that argument fails, they simply refuse to cooperate. Notice how they blew off a Senate investigation, rather than testify; notice how they destroyed evidence of torture they were ordered by a Federal judge to protect.
I think it's time to get Federal marshals to go in and handcuff Bush administration officials, drag them down Pennsylvania Avenue, and make them appear before Congress. I think if they don't answer questions, they should sit in a jail cell until they agree tell the truth.
In addition to the comments by dlneslon7, with which I agree (read some Howard Zinn), and in addition to our treatment of the Filipino natives (including water boarding) during and after the so-called Spanish-American War, check on this country's actions in Central America, circa 1920-30, using the U.S.M.C. on "punitive expeditions" for the benefit of the United Fruit Company. Or know that the so-called "School of the Americas" (name now changed) operated by the U.S. Army, was used to train right-wing terror squads in Central and South America and that Viet Nam-experienced NCO's operated with those squads as "advisors." We have perpetrated enough evil in this hemisphere alone to qualify us as a "terror nation," and now we're just branching out into the whole world. We will never see a democracy here because we've never had one. We have a one-party government, the Business Party, with two quarreling, spatting, bickering wings. Other than that, forget it and know that this empire's reign will soon terminate, probably by implosion.
Send as much $ as you can to the ACLU.They are the ones who'll represent our interests justly and without fail.
Debbs1
I can understand why through the prism of amero-centric presentism, you would want to focus on just THIS administration but dlneslon7 is right; what's the point of fighting just the most current symptom when the actual disease remains routinely ignored?
Let's hear the candidates discuss this at the next "debate."
dinelson: "what horrible people we have become?"
We are NOT horrible. I refuse to take the blame for the crimes and misdemeanors of this administration.
We have to work like hell to get them out---take away their power, try them for war crimes...waterboard them.
I don't care who the opposing nominee is, vote for them.......NOTHING could be as evil as what we have or could have again if the GOP continue their hold on the country.
We all know somebody who thinks this is OK. Lock him in the trunk of his car if you get a chance.
"CIA Torture Jet wrecks with 4 Tons of COCAINE"
Has to be Bush's personal stash
What does the job application for torturers look like?
How many times a day are you willing to stick your fingers up some strangers rectum?
Whose children are these who have grown up to become torturers --- ????
George Orwell: the 20th century Nostradamus... almost. He got the date wrong, and the problem started with the right, not the left, otherwise he's been pretty accurate . At least we can still turn our telescreens off.
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER!
dlneslon7
"God…what horrible people we have become."
Not singling you out personally, but we have been horrible people from the beginning. A Native t-shirt reads "Terrorism Since 1492."
Since Columbus, Euro/Americans are responsible for the deaths of over one hundred million Native American people. This represents the worst genocide in the World in the last five hundred years. The genocide "lives" on today as a "quiet" genocide. It has never ended and is ongoing. So what you are really seeing and experiencing today is the unmasking of America and a revealing of the raw truth. This "IS" who we are, and this "IS" who we always were.
So Germany has been paying out reparations to survivors of the Holocaust for years now...now it's the US' turn.
Jaded,
Tell me about it. I remember when they had those hearings in South Central LA with Gates regarding flooding the ghettos with crack cocaine. The residents tore him a new one, but of course nothing has been done since then to stop the 'drug epidemic'. It's obvious that the drug wars, like all wars, are nothing more than money making opportunities for government thugs.
I suggest we all stop paying taxes since there is so much money being made by all these other clandestine ventures.
"CIA Torture Jet wrecks with 4 Tons of COCAINE"
Just like the '80's!
We are forever scarred. Indeed, we have become what one day we sought to overcome. It's true, the bulk of humanity in "leadership" is sadly taught life process and survival by its persecutors rather than its liberators. Perhaps the most dangerous human individual or collective is that which takes on the role of the self-appointed, exclusive and entitled victims. They, too often -- sadly become thier former persecutors who taught the lesson of compliance -- "or else!"
"Extraordinary rendition" means torture, "Clear Skies Initiative" means air pollution, "Terminate With Extreme Prejudice" means to kill... what else can warped conservative minds think of?
CIA Torture Jet wrecks with 4 Tons of COCAINE
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN24356384
This Florida based Gulfstream II jet aircraft N987SA crash landed on September 24, 2007 after it ran out of fuel over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula it had a cargo of several tons of Cocaine on board now documents have turned up on both sides of the Atlantic that link this Cocaine Smuggling Gulfstream II jet aircraft N987SA that crashed in Mexico to the CIA who used it on at least 3 rendition flights from Europe and the USA to Guantanamo's infamous torture chambers between 2003 to 2005.
Cocaine-laden plane crashes in Mexico jungle
Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:33pm EDT
CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) - An airliner stuffed with dozens of sacks of Colombian cocaine crashed in the jungle of southern Mexico on Monday, police said.
Local police officer Eustaquio Arredondo told reporters no casualties had been found but one person who was apparently on board the aircraft had been arrested.
TV images showed 132 military-style black bags containing around 3.3 metric tons of cocaine lined up in rows next to chunks of the wrecked plane, which came down near the municipality of Tixkokob, a three-hour drive west of the Cancun beach resort.
Mexican army planes had been tracking the aircraft since it was spotted entering Mexican air space.
Drug planes packed with South American cocaine -- often with passenger seats ripped out to make space -- frequently fly through Mexico and Central America en route for the United States.
Some unload their cargo at clandestine airstrips south of the border where traffickers send it on by road or sea.
President Felipe Calderon has deployed thousands of troops against Mexican drug gangs. The murder rate from cartel turf wars has calmed down since March but killings still number around 2,000 people so far this year.
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
Reuters journalists are subject to the Reuters Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
***************************************************
I guess the CIA is there to be 'the cats paw' that will get it's hands dirty while the people who sanction their actions continue to carry on in leadership positions.
God...what horrible people we have become.
G.O.P = Gulag Operations Party.
Any "candidate" that doesn't agree in advance to end this horror and to prosecute this administration for crimes against humanity is beyond consideration.
This are only of people we know....What about those that just disappeared? Welcome to the Fourth reich!