WASHINGTON - The Central Intelligence Agency's "rendition" of suspected terrorists has spiralled "out of control" according to a former FBI agent cited in a report by The New Yorker magazine, which examined how CIA detainees are spirited to states suspected of using torture. The CIA uses the word "rendition" to mean the transport of suspected terrorists to other countries for interrogation.

Michael Scheuer a former CIA agent, said "all we've done is create a nightmare," with regard to the top secret practice.

In a forthcoming article titled "Outsourcing Torture" the magazine claims suspects, sometimes picked up by the CIA, are often flown to Egypt, Morocco, Syria and Jordan, "each of which is known to use torture in interrogations".

Despite US laws that ban America from expelling or extraditing individuals to countries where torture occurs, Scott Horton - an expert on international law who has examined CIA renditions - estimates that 150 people have been picked up in the CIA net since 2001.

The New Yorker report reveals that suspects in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East "have been abducted by hooded or masked American agents" and then sometimes forced onto a white Gulfstream V jet.

The jet "has been registered to a series of dummy American corporations ... (and) has clearance to land at US military bases," the report said. Its tailmark has recently been changed from the code N379P to N8068V.

According to one suspect, Maher Ayar, who was arrested in 2002 by US officials and then claims he was tortured in Syria before being released, crew onboard the Gulfstream identified themselves as "the Special Removal Unit" during radio communications.

"The most common destinations for rendered suspects are Egypt, Morocco, Syria and Jordan, all of which have been cited for human rights violations," the report said.

By holding detainees without counsel or charges of wrongdoing, the administration of US President George W Bush "has jeopardised its chances of convicting hundreds of suspected terrorists, or even of using them as witnesses in almost any court in the world," the report said.

The report cited Dan Coleman, an ex FBI counter-terrorism expert who retired in July 2003.

Coleman told The New Yorker that torture "has become bureaucratised," by the Bush administration, and that the practice of renditions is "out of control".

Scheuer said there had been a legal process underlying early renditions, but as more suspects were rounded up following the September 11, 2001, attacks, "all we've done is create a nightmare".

Abductees are effectively classified as "illegal enemy combatants," by the US government, which is how it also classifies the estimated 550 "war on terror" detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Such a classification, the US argues, exempts such detainees from the protections of the Geneva Conventions, part of which govern the treatment of prisoners.

© 2005 AFP

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