Rights group says CIA rendered 14 suspects to Jordan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - At least 14 people have been secretly handed over by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to Jordan for interrogation and torture since the September 11 attacks, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Tuesday.
"While a handful of countries received persons rendered by the United States during this period, no other country is believed to have held as many as Jordan," the New York-based rights group said in a statement.
U.S. President George W. Bush says the United States does not use torture. His administration has acknowledged sending terrorist suspects to other countries but only under assurances they would be treated according to international law.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said, as a rule, the agency does not comment on allegations of specific renditions.
"Renditions are a lawful, valuable tool and they have been used for years to take terrorists off the streets. The United States does not transport individuals for the propose of torture and has no interest in any process that would produce bad intelligence," Gimigliano said Tuesday evening.
CIA Director Michael Hayden said in September the total number of such rendition flights was under 100.
The renditions have caused serious frictions with close U.S. allies in Europe.
Critics complain the CIA has mistreated prisoners and operated clandestine flights under the secret "rendition" program in which suspects were handed over to countries like Egypt and Syria, where critics say they could be tortured.
Human Rights Watch said its 36-page report, "Double Jeopardy: CIA Renditions to Jordan," was based on firsthand information from Jordanian former prisoners who were detained with the non-Jordanian suspects. It details eight previously unknown cases, Human Rights Watch said.
The report cites excerpts from a handwritten note from one of the rendered prisoners, Ali al-Hajj al-Sharqawi, which he wrote while in Jordanian custody in late 2002.
The note, which al-Sharqawi marked with his thumbprint, says Jordanian intelligence department interrogators beat him "in a way that does not know any limits."
The note, translated by Human Rights Watch, continues: "They threatened me with electricity, with snakes and dogs. ... (They said) we'll make you see death. ... They threatened to rape me."
Human Rights Watch said Jordanian intelligence officials denied in August that they had held prisoners handed over by the United States and that torture was practiced.
"However, given the weight of credible evidence showing otherwise, their denials are unconvincing," it said.
"The Bush administration claims that it has not transferred people to foreign custody for abusive interrogation," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. "But we've documented more than a dozen cases in which prisoners were sent to Jordan for torture."
It said the prisoners rendered to Jordan were believed to include at least five Yemenis, three Algerians, two Saudis, a Mauritanian, a Syrian, a Tunisian, one or more Chechens. They may have included a Libyan, an Iraqi Kurd, a Kuwaiti, at least one Egyptian, and a national of the United Arab Emirates.
(Editing by Doina Chiacu)
