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US 'exposes' deportees to torture
31/08/2007 09:00 - (SA)
Scranton - The United States is exposing deportees to the risk of torture by accepting the word of foreign governments that prisoners won't be tortured if sent home, lawyers for an Egyptian detainee argued on Thursday.
The US government said detainees such as Sameh Khouzam - a murder suspect who said he was tortured for his religious beliefs - could be sent back to Egypt without the risk of further torture because it had received "diplomatic assurances" from Egyptian authorities that this would not happen.
Khouzam's backers including the American Civil Liberties Union said Egypt had a record of torturing opponents and that diplomatic assurances were no guarantee.
The case was the first US court test of whether the government could legally use such assurances to deport suspects to countries that had a record of torturing opponents.
Bush administration 'slammed'
Khouzam's lawyers said the courts had a legitimate role to play in deciding such cases while the government argued that they were purely a matter for the executive branch.
It followed ongoing criticism that the Bush administration had not forcefully opposed torture, whether through enhanced interrogation techniques at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or through rendition, after prisoners were transferred to countries believed to torture people.
Civil rights organisations argued in the Khouzam case that the US government was violating its obligations under the Convention Against Torture, an international treaty initiated by America under former President Bill Clinton.
In 2004, a federal appeals court granted Khouzam protection from deportation under the treaty after finding he would likely be tortured if returned to Egypt.
The government was trying to circumvent that decision by citing diplomatic assurances, said his lawyers.
Govt provides no evidence
Amrit Singh, a lawyer for the ACLU, said: "The government has provided no evidence that these assurances are reliable."
According to human rights advocates, Khouzam, 38, a Coptic Christian, fled to the US in 1998 after being tortured by the Egyptian authorities in an attempt to force him to convert to Islam.
Khouzam's mother Georgette Shehata said after the hearing that her son was one of many Coptic Christians to be persecuted by the authorities because of their religion. She said: "Many of them are tortured, many of them are dead."
Khouzam, in custody in Pennsylvania, had been detained for most of his time in the US because of Egyptian murder charges, which the ACLU questioned. He had been convicted in absentia, Singh told the court.
Vanaskie, who issued an emergency stay of Khouzam's removal, said he was "struggling" with the idea that "the fellow fled to avoid prosecution", and said that "may change the calculus here".
He said he was looking to make a "quick" decision, particularly since Khouzam had been in custody for most of his eight years in the US.
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