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'Terror abductions' in Pakistan
28/09/2006 22:20 - (SA)
London - Pakistan has abducted hundreds
of people as part of the US-led war on terror, often secretly
holding them for months while they are interrogated, said human-rights group Amnesty International on Friday.
Some suspects were held in Pakistani interrogation centres,
but many were handed over to US custody and held in Guantanamo
Bay, Bagram air base or other secret detention facilities, said the
group in a report on "enforced disappearances in the war on
terror".
In many cases, US agents paid a bounty of $5 000 to those,
usually intelligence agents, who simply declared people
terrorists, seized them and handed them over for interrogation
with no legal process, said Amnesty.
"Enforced disappearances were almost unheard of in Pakistan
before the start of the US-led war on terror - now they are a
growing phenomenon, spreading beyond terror suspects," said Amnesty
researcher Angelika Pathak.
Central register
"The Pakistani government must set up a central register of detainees and publish regular lists of all recognised places of detention so that, in future, nobody can be secretly imprisoned and face the risks of torture," she added.
The rights group said the clandestine nature of the war on
terror made it impossible to know exactly how many people had "disappeared" and been tortured or illegally executed,
but the number must run into hundreds.
It cited Pakistani military spokesperson Major-General Shaukat
Sultan as saying in June this year that 500 terrorists had been
killed and more than 1 000 arrested since 2001.
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