Secret Detention in CIA Black Sites P2

New terrorism laws should adhere to human rights principles. John von Doussa QC

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In another variation, sometimes called "reverse rendition", US agents have abducted suspects on foreign soil, or assumed custody of detainees from other countries, in transfers that completely bypass any legal process or human rights protections. Some of the victims of reverse rendition have later turned up in Guantánamo, but the most sinister and least well-documented cases are those of the detainees who have simply "disappeared" after being detained by the USA or turned over to US custody.

It has been widely reported that the US is holding a small coterie of some two to three dozen "high-value" detainees at secret CIA-run facilities outside the USA.(11) The US admits that these men are in custody, but no one knows for sure where the likes of alleged al-Qa’ida leaders Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Abu Zubaida are being held. The locations are deemed to be too sensitive even to be revealed to the leaders of the US House and Senate intelligence committees. (12)

The cases of the three "disappeared" Yemenis documented in this report, however, suggest that the network of clandestine interrogation centres is not reserved solely for high-value detainees, but may be larger, more comprehensive and better organized than previously suspected.

These three men were kept in at least four different secret facilities, which were likely to have been in different countries, judging by the length of their connecting flights. There have been persistent reports that the USA operates secret detention centres in Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Thailand, Uzbekistan and other locations in Eastern Europe(13), as well as on the British Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia(14). The UK government has denied that there is a detention centre on Diego Garcia, while the USA has been more equivocal. In a Defense Department Briefing in July 2004, Lawrence Di Rita, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, was questioned about the existence of US detention centres hidden from the ICRC. Di Rita said categorically that "the ICRC has access "to all detainee operations under our [Department of Defense] control. And beyond that, I'm just not prepared to discuss it." Pressed on whether detainees were held in secret on Diego Garcia by other US agencies, he replied: "I don't know. I simply don't know." The US State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the CIA have all declined to comment on these reports.

As pressures mount on the US Administration to close Guantánamo, reform Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and turn detention centres in Afghanistan over to the Afghan government, there is a risk that the pervasive disregard for human rights protections at the heart of current detention policy will lead to more frequent recourse to secret measures, which can only lead to further grave violations of human rights.

The pattern of illegal arrests, covert transfers and secret and incommunicado detention described in this report violates the most fundamental rights of detainees: the right not to be arbitrarily arrested, the right of access to lawyers, families, doctors, the right to have families informed of arrest or place of detention, the right to be promptly brought before a judge or other judicial official, the right to challenge the lawfulness of detention and the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, as guaranteed by a battery of international human rights standards, as well as the US Constitution.

Detention by proxy: arrests in Indonesia, Jordan and Tanzania

The process by which the three men were screened for transfer into secret detention suggests that US agencies are placing considerable reliance on foreign security and intelligence services, most of which have been roundly criticized for their methods in the US State Department’s own Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Each one of the men – Muhammad al-Assad in Tanzania, and Salah ‘Ali and Muhammad Bashmilah in Indonesia – was initially detained and questioned by immigration officials. A retired intelligence official has told Amnesty International that this is a common investigative tactic, even within the USA. It is often the case, he said, that foreign nationals have some visa irregularity that can justify questioning, and immigration regulations in most countries are so arcane and confusing that even those with legitimate visas and passports can be made to think there might be some problem with their status. Moreover, he added, "it’s a good opportunity to check the passport, both to try and confirm the identity and to give you a chance to see where they’ve been. It also helps if you can have a look at their cellphones and see who they’ve been talking to."(15)

In the case of Muhammad al-Assad, the connection that seems to have led to his long detention was a tenuous link to a blacklisted charity. Muhammad al-Assad ran a small business in Dar es Salaam importing diesel engine parts, and renting out offices in a small building he owned. Some six years before his arrest, he had leased space to the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi Arabian charity identified by the USA after 9/11 as a possible link in terrorist funding. Muhammad al-Assad also signed a guarantee for the charity’s registration in Tanzania, but said that his only contact with them after that was to collect the rent.(16)

In the summer of 2003, he was in Dubai on business when his brother-in-law called to tell him that the authorities had been asking questions about the charity. Muhammad al-Assad returned to Tanzania, but was not contacted by the police. In October, the immigration authorities summoned him to their offices, telling him to bring his Tanzanian passport and mobile phone. They did not question him about his immigration status, only asked him about a man with a red car, who had recently visited the Al-Haramain offices. Muhammad al-Assad said he had not seen him, and they asked him to leave his passport, and return for it the following day. This he did, and heard nothing more until he was arrested in December.

The detentions of Salah ‘Ali and Muhammad Bashmilah seem to have been automatically triggered when they admitted to having visited Afghanistan. Salah ‘Ali was first taken into custody by Indonesian immigration officials in Jakarta in August 2003, ostensibly for questioning about his visa, although he was initially detained in an intelligence services centre. He remained chained to the wall in a cell there, without food, for three days. His wife Aisha tried three times to visit him, but was refused access. He knew she was trying to call him, he told Amnesty International, because his mobile had been left outside his cell, just out of reach, and it rang incessantly until the batteries went dead.

Salah ‘Ali was transferred to a deportation centre, where he was held for three weeks, then given a ticket to Yemen via Thailand and Jordan. Aisha, an Indonesian national, was in her last month of pregnancy and could not travel with him. In Jordan, he was taken off the plane, and questioned by the General Intelligence Department, Da’irat al-Mukhabarat al-‘Ammah (GID), who asked him right away if he had ever been in Afghanistan. He answered yes (there was already a stamp was in his passport, he told us), and was taken into custody and interrogated for 10 days about "jihad in Afghanistan". He told Amnesty International that the questions made no sense to him, because they didn’t relate to the same period he had spent there, so "I was tortured horribly. It was very bad."