Activists list 39 they say U.S. may have held secretly

[BiLaaL]

Scott Shane, New York Times

 

Thursday, June 7, 2007

 

Six human rights groups released a list Wednesday of 39 people they believe have been secretly imprisoned by the United States and whose whereabouts are unknown, calling on the Bush administration to abandon such detentions.

 

The list, compiled from news media reports, interviews and government documents, includes terrorism suspects and those thought to have ties to militant groups. In some suspects' cases, officials acknowledge that they were at one time in U.S. custody. In others, the rights groups say, there is other evidence, sometimes sketchy, that they had at least once been in American hands.

 

The list includes, for instance, Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani who is accused of being a member of al Qaeda and whose capture in northern Iraq in January 2004 was announced by President Bush. At the other extreme, two unnamed Somali nationals are on the list because they were overheard in 2005 by another prisoner who was later released, Marwan Jabour, in the cell next to his at a secret American detention center, possibly in Afghanistan.

 

Meg Satterthwaite of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University, one of the six groups, said the recent American practice mimics "disappearances" of political opponents under Latin American dictators. "Enforced disappearances are illegal, regardless of who carries them out," she said.

 

The other groups that compiled the list were Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch and two British groups, Reprieve and Cageprisoners. Three of the groups are suing under the Freedom of Information Act to learn what became of the prisoners.

 

The Bush administration has defended secretly detaining some suspects as a necessity in the fight against terrorism because officials do not want to tip off terrorist groups that their operatives are in custody. They say the comparison with past Latin American governments is unfair, because those seized by the Americans are not killed and their whereabouts will eventually be revealed.

 

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano would not comment on the names on the list. But he said "there is no shortage of myth about what the CIA has done to fight terror."

 

"The plain truth is that we act in strict accord with American law," he said, adding that the agency's actions "have been very effective in disrupting plots and saving lives."

 

In a reminder that the handling of captured terrorism suspects remains a pressing issue, Pentagon officials said Wednesday that a courier linking terrorist cells in the Horn of Africa and al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan was captured recently in East Africa and transported this week to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

 

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Abdullahi Sudi Arale was suspected of providing terrorist cells in East Africa with explosives and weapons. He traveled from Pakistan to Somalia in September 2006 and held a leadership role in the Islamic Courts Council, which held power in part of Somalia until earlier this year, according to a Pentagon statement.

 

"We believe him to be an extremely dangerous member of the al Qaeda network," Whitman said. But he said Arale, whose age and nationality were not released, would not be part of the "high value" group in the Guantanamo prisoner population of about 385.

 

Even before the secret detentions were officially confirmed, the practice drew widespread objections, including from within the Bush administration. William H. Taft IV, legal adviser at the State Department from 2001 to 2005, opposed it while in office, and on Wednesday he said he had not changed his view.

 

"I believe the United States should always account for people in its custody," said Taft, who had not reviewed the human rights groups' report. "When our own people are missing, we want to be able to insist on an accounting from their captors," Taft said. He added that keeping prisoners secret can tempt their jailers to abuse them and to cover up their deaths in custody.

[BiLaaL]

Ex-Somali leader being held at Gitmo

 

By PAULINE JELINEK

The Associated Press

 

WASHINGTON -- A man suspected of being an al Qaeda terrorist and leader of the Islamic group that ruled part of Somalia last year was captured and taken to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

 

He was identified as Abdullahi Sudi Arale.

 

"We believe him to be an extremely dangerous member of the al Qaeda network," Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

 

Whitman said Arale was suspected of acting as a courier between al Qaeda in East Africa and al Qaeda in Pakistan and helping the Africans get weapons and explosives.

 

A department statement also said that since his return from Pakistan to Somalia last September, Arale had a leadership role in the Council of Islamic Courts, which ruled part of Somalia for six months before being driven from power in January by Somali troops and their Ethiopian allies with the help of U.S. military airpower.

 

The Bush administration has repeatedly accused Somalia's Council of Islamic Courts of harboring international terrorists linked to al Qaeda and alleged to be responsible for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies.

[xiinfaniin]

^^And there, Somali tragedy continues…