Annan Defends U.N. Official Who Chided U.S.

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UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 8 - Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday vigorously defended Louise Arbour, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, after comments she made about detention and torture came under criticism from John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador.

"The secretary general has absolutely no disagreement with the statement she made yesterday, and he sees no reason to object to any of it," said Mr. Annan's spokesman, Stepháne Dujarric. In an unusual instance of a secretary general's singling out an individual envoy for critical comment, Mr. Annan said he was seeking a meeting with Mr. Bolton to make his point in person.

The dispute arose Wednesday when Ms. Arbour made a statement and gave a briefing in which she said that secret detention of terror suspects and sending suspects to foreign countries without guaranteed safeguards meant that the international ban on torture "is becoming a casualty of the so-called war on terror." She said it was "particularly insidious" that "governments are watering down the definition of torture, claiming that terrorism means established rules do not apply anymore." In comments that appeared directed at the current American effort led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to justify American treatment of prisoners, Ms. Arbour said, "An illegal interrogation technique remains illegal whatever new description a government might wish to give it."

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Ms. Arbour is a criminal lawyer from Montreal who served for five years on Canada's Supreme Court and, as a war crimes prosecutor in 1999, indicted the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. She has held her United Nations post since July 2004. Mr. Annan said he was "confident that she will carry on her work without being impressed or intimidated by what happened yesterday."

NYT