Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: CIA detention program remains active-US official

CIA detention program remains active-US official
05 Oct 2007 02:44:17 GMT
Source: Reuters
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 (Adds Democrats request Justice Dept. documents, paragraphs 15-16)
By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON, Oct 4 (Reuters) - A secret CIA overseas detention program
revealed by President George W. Bush last year remains active and has held
at least one al Qaeda militant since then, a U.S. official said on
Thursday.
The official confirmed the detention as the White House skirted the
question of whether the agency had resumed holding prisoners at secret
sites and insisted that the United States does not torture.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that the CIA was again holding
prisoners at "black sites" overseas, and that the Justice Department under
then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had issued a secret opinion in 2005
that endorsed the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the CIA.
"The ongoing existence of the CIA program is extremely troubling,"
especially in light of the reported Justice Department opinion, said Elisa
Massimino, Washington director of the advocacy group Human Rights First.
The detention and interrogation program, first revealed by The Washington
Post in late 2005 and then acknowledged by Bush in September 2006, has
provoked an international outcry, with critics accusing the administration
of secretly using torture to interrogate terrorism suspects.
Bush said all 14 high-level terrorism suspects held at that time had been
transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the Defense Department said in
April it had taken custody of a suspected al Qaeda leader who had
previously spent months in CIA hands.
A U.S. counterterrorism official, asked about detentions under the
program, said: "In late 2006, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a high-ranking al
Qaeda terrorist who planned and conducted attacks against U.S. military
forces, was captured and held in CIA custody."
The official said the man, whose real name was given by the Defense
Department as Nashwan Abd al-Razzaq Abd al-Baqi, was transferred to
department control at Guantanamo Bay earlier this year.
"WE DO NOT TORTURE"
An al Qaeda leader said in May that Abd al-Baqi had been arrested in
Turkey and handed over to the Americans.
Asked if the CIA currently holds anyone, agency spokesman George Little
said, "We do not comment on this question as a matter of course."
"The agency's terrorist detention and interrogation program has been
conducted lawfully, with great care and close review," he said.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino would not comment on the program,
saying, "We haven't been in the habit of doing a press release every time
we have a prisoner."
She also declined to comment on specific interrogation techniques but
said, "The policy of the United States is not to torture."
The Times said the Justice Department's secret 2005 memo differed sharply
from a public legal opinion in December 2004 that declared torture
"abhorrent."
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia
Democrat, in a letter on Thursday to the Justice Department requested the
legal opinions cited in the newspaper article. Rockefeller said he had
repeatedly asked for the classified opinions and the Justice Department
had never provided a formal response.
House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a
Michigan Democrat, wrote separately to the acting attorney requesting the
documents.
Citing unnamed officials, the Times said the 2005 memo for the first time
explicitly authorized painful physical and psychological tactics including
head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the 2004 opinion
"remains binding on the executive branch" but that he could not comment on
any later, nonpublic "legal advice."
Bush ordered in July that CIA interrogators comply with international
Geneva Conventions against torture.
Massimino said the order and the administration's legal opinions appear to
leave much room for harsh interrogations.
(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria, James Vicini and Thomas
Ferraro) 
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 CIA detention program remains active-US official
si prega di collegare questa notizia a quella della preoccupazione
degli USA per la democrazia in Russia...ROTFL