ZGram - 6/17/2004 - "Renditions"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

Zgram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

June 17, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

In the 1970s I received a great many reports from Argentina, where I 
had relatives, that the country and its government had fallen into 
the clutches of Marxists/Communists, and that many people simply 
"disappeared."  Thousands and thousands were nabbed, often without 
any witnesses being present, and whisked off to locations unknown. 
Some were later found, brutally mutilated before they were killed. 
One of them was a childhood friend of mine, a German girl named 
Helga, who was found decapitated.  I saw her last when she was nine 
years old.  When she was murdered, she was not yet out of her teens.  

After 9/11, Ernst would often talk to me about the possibility that 
people our government considered "inconvenient" were probably being 
whisked away without anyone being the wiser. I never quite believed 
him.  Even after his arrest, I thought for more than a year that the 
manner of his arrest was the exception, not the rule.  Now we know 
differently. 

These days, the program under which these "disappearances" are know 
is called "rendition" - don't ask me why.  I never heard the word in 
connection with political arrests until just recently.

There exists at least one website that has made an attempt to 
document and track these extra-legal arrests.  It's 
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org - and certainly a website to 
watch.  This morning, after some effort, for their links don't yet 
work, I sent them a brief email:

[START	]

My husband, Ernst Zundel, a high profile, internationally known 
Holocaust Skeptic, was arrested under false pretenses in Tennessee on 
Feb 5, 2003 and whisked off to Canada in a "rendition"-like operation 
involving three, possibly four countries - The US, Canada, Germany 
and (possibly) Israel. 

He has been held for 16 months in solitary confinement under 
atrocious, inhuman conditions in a prison in Toronto - without having 
been charged of anything specific- under what is called a "security 
certificate." 

He has undergone a number of secret trial hearings where neither the 
accusations or the accusers are known to him or his lawyers.

The Canadian government is holding 5 Arabs under similar "security 
certificate" arrangements - from all I know, not one of them has been 
charged, and none of them is guilty. 

My husband is not, and never has been, guilty of anything violent or 
criminal.  His sole "crime" is a thoughtcrime.  He is a lifelong 
pacifist.

I am interested in contacting organizations that are concerned with 
these secret police abuses - apparently widespread but little known. 
I am also interested in having my husband's name and data surrounding 
his arrest be made part of your research.

My website is at www.zundelsite.org where tons of documentation about 
my husband's case can be found.  He is fighting his case through the 
Canadian courts, and a few days ago papers have been filed at the 
Canadian Supreme Court level.

Ingrid Rimland Zundel, Ed.D.

[END]

Below, I summarize those parts of an outline I found on this website, 
as they pertain to Ernst.  I am leaving out the outline markers, 
since having them in the text makes reading it TOO cumbersome.  If 
you are interested in the entire outline, you know where to find it - 
use the search engine under "rendition" to get to this report.

[START]

Rendition,_torture,_other_forms
of unlawful interrogation

Summary:

The United States has been conducting illegal interrogations of 
suspected terrorists all over the world. Numerous accounts confirm 
that U.S. Special Forces and the CIA are using torture as a means of 
interrogation. In cases where U.S. personnel have been unable to 
extract the sought-after results, the suspects are sent to 'friendly' 
countries - which are notorious for human rights violations - where 
they are interrogated further under a practice referred to as 
'rendition'.

Last Updated: 9/26/2003

According to Major-General Geoffrey Miller, the U.S. has considered 
plans to build an execution chamber at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay 
where suspected terrorists, convicted by a secret military tribunal 
for capital crimes, would be put to death. "Prisoners would be tried, 
convicted and executed without leaving its boundaries, without a jury 
and without right of appeal." [The Mail on Sunday, 5/25/03 
paraphrased in Courier-Mail 5/26/03; Herald Sun, 5/25/03]

Observations.

Jonathan Turley, American law professor:

" It is not surprising the authorities are building a death row 
because they have said they plan to try capital cases before these 
tribunals. This camp was created to execute people. The 
administration has no interest in long-term prison sentences for 
people it regards as hard-core terrorists." [The Mail on Sunday, 
5/25/03 paraphrased in Courier-Mail 5/26/03; Herald Sun, 5/25/03]

Interrogation and torture by U.S. military and intelligence personnel.

Summary.

U.S. military and intelligence personnel use torture in the course of 
interrogating suspected enemies.

Details.

Methods of torture used.  [Here I cite only those methods known to me 
to have been inflicted on Ernst in Canada.  Many more methods were 
listed, some of them as revolting and brutal as those we have learned 
were practiced at Abu Graib, and some methods, inflicted in Ernst, 
were not listed in this report as having occurred in other places]

At the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, prisoners were deprived of 
sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights. [Washington Post 
12/26/02; Associated Press, 3/14/03; Amnesty International, 8/19/03; 
Amnesty International, 8/19/03b]

Prisoners were reported to have been subject to extreme coldness. 
[Associated Press, 3/14/03]

Some prisoners held in Afghanistan were not permitted to speak with 
one another - at all. [Associated Press, 3/14/03]

Oversight.

These interrogations are conducted in secret, away from the eyes of 
human rights organizations. The Washington Post reported, "In 
contrast to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, where military 
lawyers, news reporters and the Red Cross received occasional access 
to monitor prisoner conditions and treatment, the CIA's overseas 
interrogation facilities are off-limits to outsiders, and often even 
to other government agencies." [Washington Post 12/26/02]

Reports that verify that U.S. military and intelligence personnel are 
using torture  [Washington Post 12/26/02]

Amnesty International report - The threat of a bad example: 
undermining international standards

In a press release summarizing its report, the organization said: 
"Allegations of abuses such as arbitrary arrests, prolonged 
incommunicado detention, ill-treatment, interrogations without legal 
counsel and threats of unfair trials by military bodies are raised 
each year in the US State Department's reports on human rights 
practices in other countries. Now they are being made against the US 
government in the context of its 'war on terror'." The report cited 
several specific instances of torture and discussed the practice of 
rendition (explored in more detail below) [Amnesty International, 
8/19/03; Amnesty International, 8/19/03b]

Statements by U.S. officials/personnel

The Washington Post quoted one official who had "supervised the 
capture and transfer of accused terrorists," who said, "If you don't 
violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't 
doing your job. I don't think we want to be promoting a view of zero 
tolerance on this. That was the whole problem for a long time with 
the CIA." [Washington Post 12/26/02]

An American soldier who was a member of a "shadowy military/espionage 
operation" admitted to British spy novelist Henry Porter that torture 
was commonplace. When asked about allegations that prisoners were 
being tortured, the U.S. soldier responded: "Are you crazy? Of 
course. That's the war we've got on our hands. We didn't ask for it 
this way." [Guardian, 9/10/03]

How some U.S. officials feel about the use of torture.

"While the U.S. government publicly denounces the use of torture, 
each of the current national security officials interviewed for this 
article defended the use of violence against captives as just and 
necessary." [Washington Post 12/26/02]

Rendition.

Summary.

The U.S. government has been sending alleged terrorists, criminals, 
and other nuisances [!] of the U.S. government to foreign countries 
where it is not illegal to use torture and other such means to 
extract information or forced 'confessions'. [The Washington Post 
3/20/02; Washington Post 12/26/02; Guardian 3/12/02; Los Angeles 
Times 2/1/03 see also Sydney Morning Herald 3/13/02; World Socialist 
Web Site 3/13/02]

Sources.

Sources that have confirmed the existence and nature of 'rendition' 
include several former intelligence officials and current U.S. 
national security officials - several of whom witnessed the actual 
handling of prisoners. [Washington Post 12/26/02]

Details

It is official policy for the U.S. to send suspected enemies to 
'friendly' nations for purposes of interrogation.

The Washington Post.  March 11, 2002.  [The Washington Post 3/20/02; 
Sydney Morning Herald 3/13/02; see also World Socialist Web Site 
3/13/02]

"Since Sept. 11, the U.S. government has secretly transported dozens 
of people suspected of links to terrorists to countries other than 
the United States, bypassing extradition procedures and legal 
formalities, according to Western diplomats and intelligence sources. 
The suspects have been taken to countries, including Egypt and 
Jordan, whose intelligence services have close ties to the CIA and 
where they can be subjected to interrogation tactics -- including 
torture and threats to families -- that are illegal in the United 
States, the sources said."  [The Washington Post 3/20/02]

  "Between 1993 and 1999, terrorism suspects also were rendered to the 
United States from Nigeria, the Philippines, Kenya and South Africa 
in operations acknowledged by U.S. officials. Dozens of other covert 
renditions, often with Egyptian cooperation, were also conducted, 
U.S. officials said. The details of most of these operations, which 
often ignored local and international extradition laws, remain 
closely guarded."  [The Washington Post 3/20/02]

The article cited very specific cases in which these cases of 
rendition occurred.  The Post article was later covered in detail by 
the World Socialist Web Site.  [World Socialist Web Site 3/13/02]

In some cases, "usually involving lower-level captives, the CIA hands 
them to foreign intelligence services -- notably those of Jordan, 
Egypt and Morocco -- with a list of questions the agency wants 
answered. These 'extraordinary renditions' are done without resort to 
legal process and usually involve countries with security services 
known for using brutal means." [Washington Post 12/26/02]

  "Some who do not cooperate [with U.S. personnel] are turned over - 
'rendered,' in official parlance -- to foreign intelligence services 
whose practice of torture has been documented by the U.S. government 
and human rights organizations." [Washington Post 12/26/02]

  "Thousands have been arrested and held with U.S. assistance in 
countries known for brutal treatment of prisoners, the officials 
said." [Washington Post 12/26/02]

Specific cases of 'rendition.'

In January 2002, the Central Intelligence Agency sent a request to 
Indonesia to arrest suspected al Qaeda Operative Muhammad Saad Iqbal 
Madni (age 24), and extradite him to Egypt.  Within a few days, 
"without a court hearing or a lawyer -- he was hustled aboard an 
unmarked, U.S.-registered Gulfstream V jet parked at a military 
airport in Jakarta and flown to Egypt ". [The Washington Post 
3/20/02; Amnesty International, 8/19/03]

The New York Times cited "senior American officials" saying that 
interrogators questioning Khalid Shaikh Mohammed planned to rely on 
"what they consider acceptable techniques like sleep and light 
deprivation and the temporary withholding of food, water, access to 
sunlight and medical attention." [New York Times, 3/9/03; Amnesty 
International, 8/19/03]

Official rendition policy

"U.S. officials who defend the renditions say the prisoners are sent 
to these third countries not because of their coercive questioning 
techniques, but because of their cultural affinity with the 
captives." [Washington Post 12/26/02]

"The Bush administration maintains a legal distance from any 
mistreatment that occurs overseas, officials said, by denying that 
torture is the intended result of its rendition policy." [Washington 
Post 12/26/02]

Does the U.S. fabricate evidence and charges in order to have a 
pretext for rendition?

The lawyers representing Mullah Krekar, the leader of the Islamic 
fundamentalist group Ansar al-Islam, believe that the U.S., in 
collaboration with Jordan, may have fabricated drug charges against 
their client in an attempt to establish grounds for his rendition to 
Jordan.  [Los Angeles Times 2/1/03]

Statements by U.S. officials/personnel

The Washington Post quoted a Western diplomat who told the newspaper, 
"After September 11, these sorts of movements have been occurring all 
the time.  It allows us to get information from terrorists in a way 
we can't do on U.S. soil."  [The Washington Post 3/20/02]

The Washington Post quoted one official who said, "We don't kick the 
[expletive] out of them. We send them to other countries so they can 
kick the [expletive] out of them." [Washington Post 12/26/02]

The Washington Post quoted one official who said, "In some cases 
[involving interrogations in Saudi Arabia], we're able to observe 
through one-way mirrors the live investigations. In others, we 
usually get summaries. We will feed questions to their investigators. 
They're still very much in control." [Washington Post 12/26/02]

The Washington Post quoted Fred Hitz, a former CIA inspector general, 
who said, "Based largely on the Central American human rights 
experience, we don't do torture, and we can't countenance torture in 
terms of we can't know of it." But if a country offers the US 
information that was acquired from interrogations, he explained, "we 
can use the fruits of it." [Washington Post 12/26/02]

The Washington Post quoted one official who had "direct involvement 
in renditions" who said he knew that people rendered to other 
countries were probably tortured. "I . . . do it with my eyes open," 
he said. [Washington Post 12/26/02]

On Sept. 26, 2002, Cofer Black, then head of the CIA Counterterrorist 
Center joint hearing of the House and Senate intelligence committees, 
speaking of U.S. interrogation practices said, "This is a very highly 
classified area, but I have to say that all you need to know: There 
was a before 9/11, and there was an after 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves 
come off." [Senate Intelligence Committee 9/26/2002; Washington Post 
12/26/02]

The Washington Post reported, "[F]ive officials acknowledged, as one 
of them put it, 'that sometimes a friendly country can be invited to 
<want> someone we grab.' Then, other officials said, the foreign 
government will charge him with a crime of some sort." [Washington 
Post 12/26/02]

Observations.

"The picture that emerges is of a brass-knuckled quest for 
information, often in concert with allies of dubious human rights 
reputation, in which the traditional lines between right and wrong, 
legal and inhumane, are evolving and blurred." [Washington Post 
12/26/02]

Parameter, a respected Quarterly published by the United States Army 
War College.

"Such a practice of vicarious torture is imbued with an obvious 
hypocrisy that prevents the sending state - such as the United States 
- from having clean hands. Moreover, obtaining human intelligence 
from foreign governments is fraught with its own downside risk: such 
intelligence, filtered through a foreign government, may contain 
information tainted by that governments biases or hidden policy 
objectives." [Parameter 2002; New York Times, 3/9/03]