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US Hiding Detainees In Secret Locations: ICRC
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The
Pentagon recently admitted hiding detainees in Abu Ghraib from
ICRC teams
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Additional
Reporting By Angy Ghannam, IOL Staff
CAIRO,
July 15 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The International
Committee of the Red Cross said hundreds of terror suspects captured
by the US have never turned up in detention centers, fearing
Washington is hiding them in secret locations worldwide.
"We
have access to people detained by the United States in Guantanamo Bay,
Afghanistan and Iraq, but in our understanding there are people that
are detained outside these places for which we haven't received
notification or access," ICRC spokeswoman Antonella Notari told
The Associated Press Tuesday, July 13.
She
added that some suspects reported as arrested by the FBI on its Web
site, or identified in media reports, are unaccounted for.
"These
people are, as far as we can tell, detained in locations that are
undisclosed not only to us but also to the rest of the world,"
Notari said.
She
also stressed that Washington had failed to provide the Geneva-based
aid organization with a requested list of everyone it is holding.
Under
the Geneva Conventions, the United States is obliged to give the
neutral, Swiss-run watchdog access to all prisoners of war and other
detainees to check on their conditions and allow them to send messages
to their families.
Notari
said she had read media reports that some people are being held at
Diego Garcia, a British-held island in the Indian Ocean that the
United States uses as a strategic military base, but the ICRC has not
been notified of any prisoners there.
"We
just simply have absolutely no confirmation of this in any formal
way," she said.
In
a report entitled "Ending Secret Detention", the American
Human Rights First said the United States has more than 24
world detention camps, at least half of them operate in total
secrecy, where the abuse of detainees is "inevitable".
Also,
the Observer reported on Sunday, June 13, that Washington and
its allies are running a wanton global
network of detention camps allowing the US to fly terror
suspects to other countries where they are tortured for information.
In
an unprecedented move, 31 United Nations human rights experts pressed
Friday, June 25, for access
to so-called terror suspects around the world.
"Looking
Further"
White
House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday he was "looking
further into" the ICRC concerns, adding his administration works
"closely with the Red Cross on all detainee issues."
At
the Pentagon, spokesman Bryan Whitman claimed that the ICRC "has
access to all Defense Department detention operations."
However,
in his March report, Antonio Taguba, the US Army officer who
investigated abuses at the Abu Ghraib, criticized the practice of
allowing ghost
detainees.
He
said military police had "routinely held persons brought to them
by other government agencies without accounting for them, knowing
their identities, or even the reason for their detention."
On
at least one occasion, they moved these "ghost detainees"
around the prison to hide them from a visiting ICRC delegation, he
said in the report.
A
Pentagon spokesman later admitted that US Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld personally ordered a secret
detention of an Iraqi detainee without giving him an
identification number so that he can escape the eyes of ICRC teams.
'Abductees'
Concerning
the legal status of detainees held by the United Sates across the
world, an international law expert told IslamOnline.net in earlier
recent statements that they were "abductees", not prisoners.
"Based
on the international law and according to the 1979
additional protocol to the Geneva Conventions relating to the
Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts against hostage
taking and the 1973 amendment to the UN resolution concerning the
basic rights of resistance fighters, Iraqi prisoners, or any other
prisoners held by the US occupation forces are abductees, not
prisoners, whether of war or criminal," Hassan Omar said.
"Based
on these two crucial amendments in the four Geneva conventions, Iraqi
or any other prisoners in the US-run prisons were abducted by the US
occupation forces, which constitutes an international terrorism
crime," he added.
The
expert added that these prisoners should be released immediately and
that the international community should prosecute those responsible
for their detention.
Professor
Abdallah Al-Ashaal, former Egyptian assistant foreign minister and an
international law expert, also echoed similar position.
"The
US, after detaining those people, have to face them with their crimes
and they have to stand for trials immediately," he said in recent
statements to IOL.
"Detaining
them without charges is another violation of the Geneva
conventions," he added, accusing Washington of trying to
"avoid implementing international law".
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