Justice Dept. Refuses Cooperation With Polish Prosecutors Investigating Torture at CIA Black Site

[Poll_Blind]

From Harpers Magazine:

Polish prosecutors looking into the torture (including waterboarding) of prisoners held at the former CIA black site in northeastern Poland near Szymany air base turned to the U.S. Department of Justice with a request for help in collecting information relevant to the case.

--snip--

The U.S. Department of Justice has rejected a request from prosecutors in Warsaw for assistance in the investigation into the alleged CIA prisons in Poland, where captives claim they were tortured.

--snip--

On 7 October, reports the PAP news agency, the US informed prosecutors that the motion had been rejected on the basis of the international Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters and that the U.S. authorities consider the matter “to be closed”.

According to the agreement, a country has the right to refuse to provide legal assistance if the execution of the request would encroach on this country’s security or another interest of this country.

--snip--

So far, the U.S. Justice Department has failed to comply with its treaty obligations to supply information requested by prosecutors in Spain, Germany, Italy, and Poland who are probing allegations of kidnapping, false arrest, assault, and torture by persons believed to be CIA agents in connection with extraordinary rendition operations.

Worth reading the linked article, it isn't terribly long and snippin doesn't do it justice.

PB

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[kgnu_fan]

2. kick

[ThomCat]

3. This is disturbing and disgusting.

Refusing to adhere to treaties, which is breaking our law, and doing it stonewall investigations into torture by the CIA just confirms yet again that the Obama administration still actively supports torture and will go to great lengths to ensure that nobody from the US is going to ever be held accountable for it.

x(

Oh Yeah, Obama is restoring the rule of law, my ass!

[Octafish]

4. Torture is un-American.

Oh. And it's a war crime, as well.

What country I now live in, I don't know.

Thank you for the heads-up, PollBlind. Happy New Year to You and Yours!

[sabrina 1]

5. No one should be surprised any longer. Torture is a U.S.

policy. Everything revealed in the Wikileaks cables confirms it beyond a doubt.

From the interference of this president in Spains prosecution of Bush's archetects of torture to

the reason why Manning did what he did in the first place. He witnessed detainees being handed over to U.S. trained Iraqi forces and knew they were being tortured.

He reported the crimes to his superiors and was ignored. Some of the cables he supposedly leaked prove that he was correct, the U.S. knew about the torture, and refused to do anything about it.

Another revelation from those cables, shows how U.S. representatives attacked the judges from the European Court of Human Rights.

And we know that extraordinary renditions are continuing under this administration.

Americans have to make a choice. All of our laws on human rights are being broken daily. Is the country they want or not? Because we are now known as a country that tortures and that torturers in this country are immune from the law. And we will go around the world to try to protect our torturers and our allies who torture for us, to protect them from prosecution. There is no longer any doubt about that. And if we thought that having Democrats in power would change it, we have learned we were wrong.

So, what can we do now?

[awoke_in_2003]

6. guess we finally forgot Poland. nt

[Rex]

7. Did Obama fire the JD overlords installed by GWB?

It sounds like Cheney is still running things there...did anyone check if he vacated that underground bunker?

[DCKit]

8. They probably haven't looked. It needs serious fumigation.

I guess they're probably too scared to go down there... the smell of sulfur and all that. How can you be sure the demons have gone?

[jwirr]

9. But they go after Wikileaks and keep Manning in solitary. Good

country live in.

[Poll_Blind]

10. Exactly, and there's the rub: Despite the fact that the Obama administration could argue that it...

...has had its "hands ties" on some issues, there are issues like this where it's all Obama. It's not like the ghost of GWB is still in charge, Obama is expending energy to continue this Bush-era programs and ideologies.

PB

[Karmadillo]

11. Just the sort of thing a rogue nation does.

nt