U.S. held Yemeni in secret jails for years: Amnesty

LONDON (Reuters) - The running of secret CIA prisons for terrorism suspects makes a mockery of international law, Amnesty International said on Friday in a case study of a Yemeni man who was held incommunicado for more than 2-1/2 years.

The human rights group said Khaled al-Maqtari's case shed new light on "the cruelty and illegality of the CIA program of secret detentions and forced disappearances".

It said he suffered multiple forms of torture and ill-treatment during an odyssey which began with his capture in Iraq in 2004 and led him, via Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, to secret U.S. jails in Afghanistan and another unknown location, possibly in eastern Europe.

Under fire over the treatment of terrorism suspects, President George W. Bush signed an executive order in July 2007 requiring the Central Intelligence Agency to comply with prohibitions against "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" as set down in the Geneva conventions against torture.

But human rights groups have condemned Bush for refusing to specify which interrogation practices are and are not allowed. Last Saturday he vetoed legislation passed by Congress that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning.

Referring to Bush's assurances on the legality of the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Detainee Program", Amnesty said: "The USA is interpreting its international obligations in a way that renders them meaningless."

The group said that apart from beatings, drenchings with cold water, intimidation by dogs and being hung upside down by a chain, al-Maqtari had suffered many forms of "no-touch torture" during the various stages of his imprisonment.

They included: prolonged solitary confinement; sensory deprivation; use of stress positions; sleep deprivation; forced nudity; exposure to extreme hot and cold, bright lights and loud music; prolonged shackling and withdrawal of medication.

Bush confirmed for the first time in September 2006 that the United States had run secret jails for terrorism suspects.

Washington has defended the practice, saying fewer than 100 detainees, including suspected senior al Qaeda members, have been held in such facilities, and they have provided vital information under questioning that has helped prevent attacks.

Bush said at the time that the jails were empty after the transfer of 14 top captives to Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. prison camp on Cuba. But Amnesty said the program was not shut down and another "high value detainee", Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, was transferred from CIA custody to Guantanamo last year.

Amnesty said secret prisons were by their very nature illegal. "The secret detentions carried out by the CIA thus far have also amounted to enforced disappearance, which, like torture, is a crime under international law."

Al-Maqtari, 31, was freed without charge from U.S. custody in 2006 and returned to Yemen, where he was detained until May 2007.

Amnesty said he remained physically and emotionally damaged and "continually coughed up mucus and blood" while its researcher was interviewing him. It urged the United States to investigate his allegations, accept responsibility and compensate him.