CIA agents reveal money flows to Pakistani ISI in Reward for Justice programme, say up 700 suspects were handed over

The CIA has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Pakistan’s intelligence service since the Sept. 11 attacks, accounting for as much as one-third of the foreign spy agency’s annual budget, current and former U.S. officials say to the LA Times. The Inter-Services Intelligence agency also has collected tens of millions of dollars through a [...]

UK official criticizes High Court for ordering release of torture evidence

UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Director of Defense and Strategic Threats, Simon Manley, criticized Britain’s High Court Thursday for jeopardizing national security by ordering the public release of evidence of alleged torture of terrorism suspects. Manley accused the British judges of eroding trust between UK and foreign security officials, which he said would limit [...]

UK All party parliamentary group recommends criminalising the use of British facilities for extraordinary rendition flights

The all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on extraordinary rendition recommends criminalising various acts, including the use of British facilities for extraordinary rendition flights and the failure to prevent extraordinary rendition flights using those facilities. The proposals will also ban so-called “circuit flights” – using UK airports for flights passing through the country to enable a rendition [...]

Historic Abu Omar rendition trial ends with conviction of CIA officers for abduction

Robert Lady, the former head of the CIA in Milan, has been given an eight-year jail sentence for kidnapping at the end of the first trial anywhere in the world in which CIA officials were sentenced for the practice of extraordinary rendition.Lady was tried in his absence and convicted of helping to organise the seizure [...]

Report of UN Special Rapporteur on Counterterrorism on his mission to Egypt

An advanced edited version of the UN Special Rapporteur’s report on Egypt is out now. (A/HRC/13/37/Add.2, 14 October 2009). It will be discussed at the Human RIghts Council’s Thirteenth Session in March 2010.

In this report the Special Rapporteur examines the emergency law, criminal law provisions on terrorist crimes, and amended article 179 of the Constitution [...]

Court Refuses to Hold U.S. Officials Accountable for Complicity in Torture Abroad in Arar v. Ashcroft

A federal Court of Appeals dismissed Canadian citizen Maher Arar’s case against U.S. officials for their role in sending him to Syria to be tortured and interrogated for a year.The case was re-heard before twelve Second Circuit judges after a rare decision in August 2008 to rehear the case sua sponte, that is, of their [...]

Documents detail conditions found at secret CIA jails

Newly released documents show the FBI interviewed a naked, chained Ramzi Binalshibh back in 2002 as the bureau struggled with the CIA over how to treat high-value prisoners. According to one document, FBI officials told investigators when they arrived at the unidentified CIA site “the detainees were manacled to the ceiling and subjected to blaring [...]

CSIS agent describes Khadr extradition vs rendition debate between Pakistan, US and Canada

A CSIS agent testified in the extradition case of Abdullah Khadr, brother of infamous Omar Khadr. The agent said that the Americans wanted to render Khadr to a U.S.-run foreign prison – perhaps Guantanamo Bay or one of the undisclosed “ghost sites” – but that the Canadians and Pakistanis refused to consent to his transfer. [...]

Abdelrazik sues Canada for its alleged role in his arrest and torture

Abdelrazik’s suit seeks 24 million Canadian dollars (22 million US) from Ottawa alleging the government’s involvement in his detention and torture, and three million dollars (2.76 million US) from Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon for “misfeasance in public office.”
It claims the foreign minister “deliberately and flagrantly violated (Abdelrazik’s) constitutional right to enter Canada, and his legal [...]

EU-US to sign new extradition treaty

The EU and the US will next week (28 October) sign a treaty intended to simplify and accelerate the extradition of those suspected of serious crimes, the European Voice reports. The treaty, which will come into force next year, broadens the definition of serious crime to overcome problems with old bilateral treaties, which, for example, [...]