UN anti-torture panel: US broke international law
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- Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 15:24:24 GMT
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UN anti-torture panel: US broke international law
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
AFP - May 19, 2006
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/060519130229.hmnd7tha.html
UN anti-torture panel faults US on detention centres
GENEVA (AFP) - The UN anti-torture watchdog has called on the United States
to close any secret prisons it operates around the world and shut down its
Guantanamo Bay centre because they broke international law.
In a report after hearing evidence from senior US officials, the Committee
on Torture also told Washington to eradicate abuses by US personnel and
refrain from handing detainees over to countries where they could face
torture.
The panel said it was "deeply concerned" at reports that US intelligence had
set up secret facilities and regretted Washington's refusal to comment
during the hearings.
It said the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba, where the United States has been
holding suspects in its "war on terror," should be closed and detainees
there either put on trial or freed.
The committee acknowledged terrorism was a "terrible threat" and the United
States faced "a complex legal and political context".
But international rules against torture and other mistreatment apply "at all
times", it cautioned Friday.
Sitting as a 10-member panel of legal experts, the body monitors compliance
with the UN Convention Against Torture by the 141 nations which have
ratified the accord.
It has little power except to highlight or criticise issues it decides need
correcting.
Earlier this month it held its first hearings on Washington's record since
US President George W. Bush unleashed the "war on terror" after the
September 11, 2001 attacks.
At the hearings, US officals refused to comment on intelligence activities
and about detainees allegedly held secretly abroad.
In its conclusions, the panel said the United States "should cease to detain
persons in secret detention facilities, inside its territory, in territories
under its jurisdiction and in facilities under its de-facto effective
control.
"The state party should acknowledge that detaining persons in secret
facilities constitutes, per se, an act of torture or cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment, depending on its exact nature, purpose
and severity."
The committee said Washington should make a similar admission over holding
people indefinitely without charge in known detention centres.
In its testimony, the US delegation told the committee that use of torture
and other ill-treatment by the US military or intelligence services was
against the law wherever they may be operating.
The officials said procedures and training were now more "rigorous" and 89
service personnel had been convicted in 103 courts martial.
They included a string of prosecutions following revelations in 2004 of the
mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad.
Nineteen of the convictions involved sentences of at least one year, while
28 servicemen or women were thrown out of the US military, officials said.
Nevertheless, the UN committee said it was "deeply concerned" at the "very
lenient sentences" even after cases that had involved fatalities.
It added that such action did "not reflect the seriousness the state party
claims in dealing with those abuses."
"The state party should take firm measures to eradicate all forms of torture
and ill-treatment by its law enforcement personnel, civil or military, in
Afghanistan and Iraq," it said.
In February, the US military held around 490 detainees in Guantanamo, 400
more in Afghanistan and 14,000 at facilities in Iraq, the United States
earlier told the committee.
The US has been under fire for allegedly "outsourcing" torture to countries
with questionable human rights records.
The panel said it welcomed a statement by the United States that it did not
transfer people to nations where it believed they were likely to be
tortured.
However, the panel said it was concerned by Washington's use of "diplomatic
assurances" -- apparent guarantees from other countries that suspects would
not be tortured -- as well as the secrecy surrounding such procedures.
*
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