Groups sue US over fate of 39 'disappeared'

Three human rights groups sued the US government on June 7 to force it to disclose what it knows about the fate of more than three dozen detainees in the "global war on terror" who are believed to have been held by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in secret prisons at some point over the past five years and who remain unaccounted for. The three New York-based groups–Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the International Human Rights Clinic of New York University School of Law–filed their suit under the Freedom of Information Act, alleging that the government is withholding documents that can shed light on what happened to the 39 "disappeared" detainees and where they might be found. "What we're asking is where are these 39 people now, and what's happened to them since they 'disappeared?'" said Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch, which, while not a plaintiff in the case, contributed to a report that forms the basis of the lawsuit. "It is already a serious abuse to hold them in secret CIA prisons. Now we fear they may have been transferred to countries where they face further secret detention and abuse," she added. The 21-page report, to which two other groups–London-based Cageprisoners and Reprieve–also contributed, details the names and other information about 39 people who "disappeared" after their apprehension. Most were detained in Pakistan between 2001 and 2005. The report, entitled "Off the Record," also records the detention of the wives or young children–in one case, as young as six months old–of several of the detainees. The six groups said it was the most comprehensive listing of detainees who have disappeared that has been compiled since the launch of the "war on terror" in late 2001. "The duty of governments to protect people from acts of terrorism is not in question," said Amnesty's senior research director, Claudio Cordone, in London. "But seizing men, women and even children, and placing people in secret locations deprived of the most basic safeguards for any detainees most definitely is. The US administration must end this illegal and morally repugnant practice once and for all." Like torture, enforced disappearance–a practice initiated by the Nazis under the notorious "Night and Fog" decrees that became widely used by military dictatorships against suspected political dissidents in Latin America in the 1970's–violates a number of human rights treaties ratified by the US. "Since the end of Latin America's dirty wars, the world has rejected the use of 'disappearances' as a fundamental violation of international law," said Meg Satterthwaite, director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University's School of Law. "Despite this universal condemnation, our research shows that the United States has tried to vanish both the people in this report, and the rule of law. Enforced disappearances are illegal, regardless of who carries them out." More than a hundred terrorist suspects are believed to have been subject to the rendition program, but most of those eventually were sent to Guantánamo or released or otherwise have been accounted for. Of the 39 who remain unaccounted for, the report divided them into three groups–three whose detention by the US was officially acknowledged at one time; 18 about whom there is strong evidence, including witness testimony, that the US held them in secret detention; and the remainder about whom there is some evidence of their being held by the US in secret detention. Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch said it was unknown if the suspects were now in US or foreign custody, or even alive or dead. "We have families who have not seen their loved ones for years. They've literally disappeared," Miss Mariner said. Although most of the individuals on the list were originally detained in Pakistan, many are nationals from other countries, including Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, and Spain. Other initial seizures took place in Iran, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan. Among the cases detailed in the report is the detention in September 2002 of two children, then aged seven and nine, of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted Sept 11 mastermind, who is now held at Guantánamo Bay. "According to eyewitnesses, the two were held in an adult detention center for at least four months while US agents questioned the children about their father's whereabouts." After his capture, according to the report, his children were used by the CIA as "leverage to force their father to cooperate with the United States." The groups said it was not clear how many remained in detention. They challenged the assertion made last September by Bush that all secret CIA prisons had been emptied as 14 high-profile terror suspects were sent to Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. The groups are urging the US government to end secret detention, provide information on those in custody, give access by the International Committee of the Red Cross to all detainees and either bring charges or release all prisoners.