MI6 and CIA 'sent student to Morocco to be tortured' (new one)

[dutchdemocrat]

Information obtained by torture is almost always completely useless. People will say whatever the torturers want to hear in the end. This is not useful intelligence... they need to know the reality of the terrorist organization, not some semi-delirious rantings of a torture victim trying to get the pain to stop. Why this is not understood in the U.S., I don't understand?

MI6 and CIA 'sent student to Morocco to be tortured'

An Ethiopian claims that his confession to al-Qaeda bomb plot was signed after beatings, reports David Rose in New York

Sunday December 11, 2005
The Observer

An Ethiopian student who lived in London claims that he was brutally tortured with the involvement of British and US intelligence agencies.

Binyam Mohammed, 27, says he spent nearly three years in the CIA's network of 'black sites'. In Morocco he claims he underwent the strappado torture of being hung for hours from his wrists, and scalpel cuts to his chest and penis and that a CIA officer was a regular interrogator. After his capture in Pakistan, Mohammed says British officials warned him that he would be sent to a country where torture was used. Moroccans also asked him detailed questions about his seven years in London, which his lawyers believe came from British sources.

Western agencies believed that he was part of a plot to buy uranium in Asia, bring it to the US and build a 'dirty bomb' in league with Jose Padilla, a US citizen. Mohammed signed a confession but told his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, he had never met Padilla, or anyone in al-Qaeda. Padilla spent almost four years in American custody, accused of the plot. Last month, after allegations of the torture used against Mohammed emerged, the claims against Padilla were dropped. He now faces a civil charge of supporting al-Qaeda financially.

A senior US intelligence official told The Observer that the CIA is now in 'deep crisis' following last week's international political storm over the agency's practice of 'extraordinary rendition' - transporting suspects to countries where they face torture. 'The smarter people in the Directorate of Operations know that one day, if they do this stuff, they are going to face indictment,' he said. 'They are simply refusing to participate in these operations, and if they don't have big mortgage or tuition fees to pay they're thinking about trying to resign altogether.'

Already 22 CIA officers have been charged in absentia in Italy for alleged roles in the rendition of a radical cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, seized - without the knowledge of the Italian government - on a Milan street in February 2003.

The intense pressure on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week, coupled with Friday's condemnation of the use of evidence extracted under torture by the House of Lords, has intensified concerns within the CIA. The official said: 'Renditions and torture aren't just wrong, they also expose CIA personnel and diplomats abroad to enormous future risk.'

Mohammed arrived in Britain in 1994. He lived in Wornington Road, North Kensington, and studied at Paddington Green College. For most of this time, said his brother, he rarely went to a mosque. However, in early 2001 he became more religious.

SNIP

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,1664845,00.html



And in other news....

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
December 9, 2005

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY, BILL OF RIGHTS DAY, AND HUMAN RIGHTS WEEK, 2005

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION

Americans believe that freedom is God's gift to every man and woman in the world. The Founders adopted our Constitution to secure the blessings of liberty for the people of the United States, and since 1789, generations of Americans have defended and advanced freedom in our Nation.

Throughout our history, the United States has also worked to extend the promise of liberty to other countries. We are continuing those efforts today. We are promoting democracies that respect freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and freedom of the press and that protect the rights of minorities and women. We are standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes and tyranny.

This year has seen great advances in the spread of democracy and human rights. In January, more than eight million Iraqi men and women braved threats of violence to vote for a provisional government. In October, Iraqis voted in even greater numbers to approve a draft constitution for their country, and on December 15, they will return to the polls to elect a Council of Representatives. Millions of Afghans voted in September in the first free legislative elections in Afghanistan in decades. Countries of the former Soviet bloc are emerging as thriving democracies. A free press is gaining ground in Kyrgyzstan, and civil institutions are being strengthened in Ukraine and Georgia. We have witnessed good progress this year, and America will continue this historic work to advance the cause of freedom.

We remain confident in this cause because we have seen the power of freedom to overcome the dark ideologies of tyranny and terror. Freedom enables men and women to live lives of dignity.

And freedom gives the citizens of a nation confidence in a future of peace for their children and grandchildren. As we observe Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, and Human Rights Week, we renew our commitment to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law and where all people can enjoy freedom and dignity.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim December 10, 2005, as Human Rights Day; December 15, 2005, as Bill of Rights Day; and the week beginning December 10, 2005, as Human Rights Week. I call upon the people of the United States to mark these observances with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirtieth.

GEORGE W. BUSH

NNNN

http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/Archive/2005/Dec/09-46343.html

[Nothing Without Hope]

1. This student survived his ordeal. How many simply disappear forever?

After all, missing persons are reported every day, and that would make it harder to pin this on the CIA. Murder of both innocent and guilty would tie up the loose ends. This young man could not have been embarrassing them now with this testimony if they had killed him instead of releasing him.

I hope that this exposure doesn't lead to an increase in murder of secret prisoners. No, I'm definitely NOT arguing that this abominable practice shouldn't be exposed, but I am wondering about the repercussions. And I'm also wondering how often kidnapped people were simply murdered even before the CIA secret prisons and rendition finally made it into the US press. (They've been in the European press for some time.)

[lvx35]

2. The company is so well branded these days.

when I think "lacerations on my penis", I think CIA! :)