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Extraordinary rendition

Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored kidnapping in another jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States-led program used during the War on Terror,[1] which had the purpose of circumventing the source country's laws on interrogation, detention, extradition and/or torture. Extraordinary rendition is a type of extraterritorial abduction, but not all extraterritorial abductions include transfer to a third country.

For other uses, see Extraordinary Rendition.

Extraordinary rendition began under the administration of President Bill Clinton and continued under the administration of President George W. Bush. Hundreds of "illegal combatants" were abducted for U.S. detention, and transported detainees to U.S.-controlled sites as part of an extensive interrogation program that included torture.[2] Extraordinary rendition continued under the Obama administration, with targets being interrogated and subsequently taken to the U.S. for trial.[3] A 2018 report by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament found the United Kingdom, specifically MI5 and MI6, to be complicit in many of the renditions carried out by the U.S., by helping to fund them, by supplying intelligence, and by knowingly allowing the abductions to happen.[4]


In July 2014, the European Court of Human Rights condemned the government of Poland for participating in CIA extraordinary rendition, ordering Poland to pay restitution to men who had been abducted, taken to a CIA black site in Poland, and tortured.[5][6][7] Torture is banned under the European Convention on Human Rights, which 46 nations, including Poland, have pledged to uphold.

Definitions[edit]

Rendition, in law, is a transfer of persons from one jurisdiction to another, and the act of handing over, both after legal proceedings and according to law. "Extraordinary rendition," however, is a rendition that is extralegal, i.e. outside the law (see: kidnapping). Rendition refers to the transfer; the apprehension, detention, interrogation, and any other practices occurring before and after the movement and exchange of extrajudicial prisoners do not fall into the strict definition of extraordinary rendition. In practice, the term is widely used to describe such practices, particularly the initial apprehension. This latter usage extends to the transfer of suspected terrorists by the US to countries known to torture prisoners or employ harsh interrogation techniques that may rise to the level of torture.[22]


The Bush administration freely admitted to this practice; stating, among other provisions, that they have specifically asked that torture not be used. However, torture can still occur despite these provisions, and much documentation exists alleging that it has happened in many cases.[23][24][25][26] In these instances, the initial captor allows the possibility of torture by releasing the prisoner into the custody of nations that practice torture.


The next distinction of degree is that of intent, where much of the search for evidence continues. It has been alleged that some of those detainees have been tortured with the knowledge, acquiescence, or even participation of US agencies. A transfer of anyone to anywhere for torture would be a violation of US law.[22] New York attorney Marc D. Falkoff stated that such evidence, i.e. transfer for the purposes of torture, was an operational practice. In a court filing, Falkoff described a classified prisoner transfer memo from Guantanamo as noting that information could not be retrieved, as torture could not be used, and recommending that the prisoner be sent to a nation that practiced torture.[27]

Historical instances[edit]

Historical cases[edit]

The American Civil Liberties Union alleges that extraordinary rendition was developed during the Clinton administration. CIA officials in the mid-1990s were trying to track down and dismantle militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East, particularly Al Qaeda.[15]


According to Clinton administration official Richard Clarke:

A Pakistani newspaper reported that in the early hours of 23 October 2001 a Yemeni citizen, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, a 27-year-old student at Karachi University, was spirited aboard a private plane at Karachi's airport by Pakistani security officers.[93]

microbiology

In October 2001, , who lives in Australia and has both Australian and Egyptian nationality (having been born in Egypt), was detained in Pakistan, where he was interrogated for three weeks, and then flown to Egypt in a private plane. From Egypt, he was later flown to a US airbase in Afghanistan. He told the BBC that he did not know who had held him, but had seen Americans, Australians, Pakistanis, and Egyptians among his captors. He also said that he had been beaten, given electric shocks, deprived of sleep, blindfolded for eight months and brainwashed.[90] After signing confessions of involvement with al-Qaeda, which he has now retracted, Mr Habib was transferred to Guantanamo Bay. He was released without charge in January 2005.[94] Former Pakistani Interior Minister Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat told in an interview by the Australian current affairs programme Dateline that Mr Habib was linked with the "terrorist element" operating at that time. However, he contradicted himself a few minutes later, in the same interview, saying that Habib had been assumed guilty because he was in the restricted province of Baluchistan without proper visa documents.[95]

Mamdouh Habib

In late 2001 was freed by US forces from a Taliban prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan. At a news conference, he told reporters and U.S. officials he had been wrongly imprisoned for allegedly plotting to kill Osama bin Laden. He was then taken to a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, where he was stripped, bound and thrown behind bars. According to U.S. lawyers who represent him, in January 2002 he was sent to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Nearly four years later, Turkistani remained there, despite being cleared for release early 2005 after a government review concluded he is "no longer an enemy combatant." It is unclear exactly when that determination was made, but Justice Department lawyers gave notice of it in an 11 October court filing.[96] According to a 26 June 2006 press release from the Saudi Arabian embassy,[97] Turkistani was released from Guantanamo to Saudi custody.

Saddiq Ahmad Turkistani

In 2002, captured Al Qaeda leader was rendered to Egypt where he was allegedly tortured. The information he provided to his interrogators formed a fundamental part of the Bush administration case for attacking Iraq, alleging links between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Al-Libi later recanted his story and it is generally believed that his stories of contact between the Saddam Hussein regime and Al-Qaeda were fabricated to please his interrogators.[98]

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi

two Egyptians who had been seeking asylum in Sweden, were arrested by Swedish police in December 2001. They were taken to Bromma airport in Stockholm, had their clothes cut from their bodies, suppositories were inserted in their anuses and they were put in diapers, overalls, hoods, hand and ankle cuffs, they were then put onto a jet with American registration N379P with a crew of masked men. They were flown to Egypt, where they were imprisoned, beaten, and tortured according to Swedish investigative programme Kalla fakta.[99] The Swedish ambassador visited them only six weeks later. Agiza was previously charged and sentenced in absentia with being an Islamic militant and was sentenced to 25 years, a sentence that was reduced to 15 years due to the political pressure after the Rendition became known. Al-Zery wasn't charged, and after two years in jail without ever seeing a judge or prosecutor he was sent to his village in Egypt. In 2008 Al-Zery was awarded $500,000 in damages by the Swedish government for the wrongful treatment he received in Sweden and the subsequent torture in Egypt.

Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery

In March 2002, , an Italian citizen with Moroccan origins, was arrested in Pakistan and subsequently interrogated by Pakistani and US officials. He was then rendered to Moroccan authorities, detained and tortured in a secret Temara interrogation centre. He was finally released without any charges brought against him, before being rearrested in May 2003 at the border crossing of the Spanish enclave of Melilla in North Africa. He is currently imprisoned in Äin Bourja prison in Casablanca after having been sentenced to nine years in January 2004 for membership of a subversive organisation and for activities including holding unauthorised meetings. This in spite of conclusions in September 2006 by Italian Justice, after a five years investigation, that there was "an absolute lack of grounds of evidence of charge which may be used in trial" and that the suspicion motivating the inquiries had proved unfounded. Nonetheless, allegations in the Italian press and the judicial proceedings that were underway in Italy influenced court proceedings against Britel in Morocco that led to him being sentenced. MPs from Italy and from the European Parliament are set to ask the Moroccan Royal Cabinet to grant a pardon to the Italian citizen.[100] According to the European Parliament Temporary Committee on the Alleged Use of European Countries by the CIA for the Transport and the Illegal Detention of Prisoners headed by rapporteur Giovanni Claudio Fava, documents demonstrated that "the Italian judicial authorities and the Italian Ministry for Home Affairs (the latter, acting on behalf of the Direzione Centrale della Polizia di Prevenzione cited in connection with the investigation by the Divisione Investigazioni Generali ed Operazioni Speciali) cooperated constantly with foreign secret services and were well aware of all Britel's movements and whatever unlawful treatments he received, from the time of his initial arrest in Pakistan."[101]

Abou Elkassim Britel

In 2003, an Algerian named was abducted in Tanzania and taken to Afghanistan, where he was imprisoned and tortured along with Khalid El-Masri.[102] His detention appears to have arisen through a mistranslation of a telephone conversation, in which U.S. officials believed he was speaking about airplanes (tairat in Arabic) when he had in fact been speaking about tires (tirat in Arabic).

Laid Saidi

an Ethiopian student who lived in London, was apprehended in Pakistan in April 2002. He allegedly spent three years in "black sites," including in Morocco and Afghanistan. He was supposed to be part of a plot involving José Padilla. The Observer reported: "He went to Pakistan in June 2001 because, he says, he had a drug problem and wanted to quit. He was arrested on 10 April at the airport on his way back to England because of an alleged passport irregularity. Initially interrogated by Pakistani and British officials, he told Stafford Smith: "The British checked out my story and said they knew I was a nobody. They said they would tell the Americans." He was deprived of sleep by having heavy rock music played loudly throughout the day and night.[90][103]

Binyam Mohammed

On 13 December 2004, , a FARC terrorist was captured in Caracas, Venezuela by a group of Colombian intelligence officials. Granda was clandestinely transported to the Colombian city of Cúcuta, near the border with Venezuela, where his capture was legalised by the corresponding authorities.[104][105] After the capture of Granda became publicly known, the Venezuelan Government broke relations with Colombia as response of violations to its sovereignty.

Rodrigo Granda

On 5 April 2006, released details of the United States' system of extraordinary rendition, stating that three Yemeni citizens were held somewhere in Eastern Europe.[106]

Amnesty International

On 21 February 2008, British Foreign Secretary admitted that two United States extraordinary rendition flights refuelled on Diego Garcia in 2002, and was "very sorry" that earlier denials by British government ministers were having to be corrected.[107]

David Miliband

The case of , now a terrorist for ISIL.

Mohammed Haydar Zammar

This is a non-exhaustive list of some alleged examples of extraordinary rendition. Most cannot be confirmed.

1 refers to its Resolution on alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states.

2 recalling its previous recommendation on the legality of the detention of persons by the United States in Guantanamo Bay

3 urges the Committee of Ministers to draft a recommendation to Council of Europe member States containing:

Other countries[edit]

CIA participating countries[edit]

According to a report by the Open Society Foundations, 54 countries participated at one point or another with the CIA's extraordinary rendition program:[173]

Extraterritorial jurisdiction

Extraterritorial operation

Long-arm jurisdiction

Transnational repression

Grey, Stephen (2006). Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program. New York City: St. Martin's Press.  0-312-36023-1.

ISBN

Thompson, A. C., and Trevor Paglen (2006). : On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights. Hoboken, New Jersey: Melville House. ISBN 1-933633-09-3.

Torture Taxi

Paglen, Trevor (2010) Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World. New York: Duton.  978-0-451-22916-8

ISBN

therenditionproject.org.uk