Amnesty: Seven countries complicit in extraordinary renditions

Amnesty International today urged European Union governments to prevent their airports from being used for secret transfers of terror suspects to countries where they might be tortured, and called for compensation for victims of such alleged US operations.

In a report published before this week’s EU summit in Brussels, the human rights watchdog said seven European countries – including Germany, Britain and Italy – likely were complicit in abductions by US intelligence agents and have stonewalled attempts to investigate them.

“The European Council must put a resolute stop to the attitude of ’see no evil, hear no evil’ that has prevailed so far,” Amnesty said, calling on EU leaders meeting tomorrow and Friday in Brussels to declare such renditions unacceptable.

The United States has said it does not send anyone to countries that practice torture.

Amnesty’s report gave details on seven alleged renditions that took place after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and largely reached similar conclusions as Swiss senator Dick Marty, who investigated allegations of secret CIA flights and secret prisons in Europe.

Marty, investigating on behalf of the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights watchdog, concluded in a report that 14 European nations colluded with US intelligence in a “spider’s web” of human rights abuses to help the CIA spirit terror suspects to illegal detention facilities.

Amnesty accused Britain of being instrumental in the arrest of two long-time British residents in the African country of Gambia in 2002. US Defense Department records confirm both men have been classified as enemy combatants and members of al-Qaida.

Iraqi-born businessman Bisher Al-Rawi and his Jordanian business partner Jamil El-Banna were flown to the US air base in Bagram, Afghanistan, and ended up at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Amnesty said Britain provided information on the men’s travel arrangements to Gambia and one other country, which it believes to be the United States, leading to their arrest by the Gambian secret service.

The British government said last month it had formally asked the United States to release Al-Rawi and return him to Britain. The request was made “on the basis of shared counterterrorism issues with the United States,” the government said, without elaborating.

Amnesty also said evidence pointed to Germany’s complicity in the rendition of Syrian-born German Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who was apprehended during a trip to Morocco after being accused of helping recruit September 11 suicide pilot Mohamed Atta.

The circumstances of Zammar’s arrest are unclear. US and German officials have said he was flown to Syria, but Amnesty says his family does not know where he is or whether he is alive.

Germany has denied any involvement.

Other European nations implicated in the report as possibly helping US intelligence agents included Sweden, Macedonia, Bosnia and Turkey. Amnesty said there was “little doubt” that those countries “have failed in their duty to respect and protect human rights”.

Bosnia has acknowledged handing six Algerian terror suspects over to US authorities in 2002, ignoring a ruling by the country’s highest court ordering their release. All six – five of whom had Bosnian citizenship – ended up in Guantanamo.

Macedonia has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the alleged abduction of a German national by US intelligence agents to a secret prison in Afghanistan.

Italy and Turkey have also denied complicity in extraordinary renditions.

“Turkey did not and will not play any role at any stage of this process,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said today. “The claims of Amnesty International, or other organisations or individuals in this direction, need to not be given esteem.”