Rice 'miscasts torture policy'

2005-12-06 09:37

Washington - A United States human rights group said on Monday that secretary of state Condoleezza Rice "mischaracterised" US "renditions" of terror suspects to make them appear legal.

Human Rights Watch said that Rice, who defended US policy on detaining terror suspects on Monday as she departed for Europe, wrongly implied that the US didn't use any illegal methods in handling and treating detainees.

Human Rights Watch said: "Rice said the US government had not transported detainees to other countries 'for the purpose' of interrogation using torture, but she failed to mention that the US has transported detainees to countries such as Egypt and Syria, where it knows torture is commonplace."

Interrogation, torture

It said: "The Convention Against Torture, to which the US is a party, outlaws such a practice."

The group assailed Rice's explanation of "renditions", in which the CIA had been accused of secretly removing detainees from one country to another and sometimes delivering them to covert prisons for interrogation and torture.

Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, said: "Secretary Rice made extra-legal rendition sound like just another form of extradition.

"In fact, it's a form of kidnapping and 'disappearing' someone entirely outside the law."

Mistreatment of detainees

Human Rights Watch also disputed Rice's assertion that the US adhered to the Convention Against Torture in its interrogations.

Malinowski said: "Its public knowledge that the CIA has used 'waterboarding', mock executions, extended sleep deprivations and other forms of severe mistreatment of detainees.

"The Bush administration's statements that it doesn't use torture are simply meaningless."

Rice left Washington on Monday for a four-nation tour of Europe, where she was expected to be confronted with questions on US renditions and the alleged existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe.

- AFP