Court: CIA Tortured Wrongly Detained Terror Suspect
The European Court of Human Rights ruling is the first time the panel has deemed the CIA's treatment of a suspected terrorist as torture.
The European Court of Human Rights has unanimously ruled that Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen suspected of having ties to a terrorist organization, was unlawfully detained, sodomized and beaten up in front of Macedonian state police. In its landmark ruling, the court determined that Macedonia was also guilty of secretly imprisoning, abusing and torturing el-Masri.
This marks the first time the panel has deemed the CIA’s treatment of a suspected terrorist as torture.
Your support matters…The Guardian:
“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.
Independent journalism is under threat and overshadowed by heavily funded mainstream media.
You can help level the playing field. Become a member.
Your tax-deductible contribution keeps us digging beneath the headlines to give you thought-provoking, investigative reporting and analysis that unearths what's really happening- without compromise.
Give today to support our courageous, independent journalists.
After allegedly beating 33-year-old David Sal Silva to death last week, Kern County, Calif., officers reportedly confiscated cellphones from multiple witnesses containing videos of the incident. One piece of footage they apparently weren't able to take away, however, is a grainy black and white surveillance video that shows parts of the encounter.
In May 2010, Anastasio Hernandez-Rojas, a 32-year-old Mexican immigrant, was handcuffed, hogtied, kicked, beaten and tased five times before he died in the custody of U.S. Border Patrol officers, who justified their actions by claiming he resisted arrest. New eyewitness video says otherwise.
Occupiers are accusing New York police officers of beating and neglecting a woman who had a seizure after being handcuffed during the breakup of the movement’s six-month anniversary party in Zuccotti Park on Saturday night.
Muntadar al-Zaidi's shoe-throwing made him a hero in the Arab world, but his fate is uncertain. The reporter remains in custody, where, his brother says, he has been beaten and suffers from broken bones and internal bleeding. A Saudi man, meanwhile, has reportedly offered $10 million for the shoes that nearly struck President Bush.
Martin Lee Anderson, 14, died a day after he was beaten and dragged by nine guards while in the custody of a juvenile boot camp in Florida The medical examiner initially ruled that Martin died of natural causes, but (h/t: Largest Minority).
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.