JURIST - Paper Chase: HRW: CIA transferred terror suspects to Jordan as part of rendition program

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] accused the CIA Tuesday of transferring terror suspects to Jordan [report; press release] following September 11, saying that the US sent them there for interrogations as part of the CIA's rendition program [JURIST news archive]. HRW reported that at least 14 persons were sent to Jordan, saying that:

From 2001 until at least 2004, Jordan's General Intelligence Department (GID) served as a proxy jailer for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), holding prisoners that the CIA apparently wanted kept out of circulation, and later handing some of them back to the CIA. More than just warehousing these men, the GID interrogated them using methods that were even more brutal than those in which the CIA has been implicated to date. The prisoners were typically held for several months in GID custody—and in at least one case, for nearly two years.

Jordan denied any involvement [Reuters report] in the rendition program, saying that the report was based on biased, individual allegations. AP has more.

In another CIA alleged rendition case, an Italian judge last month resumed the trial [JURIST report] of 26 Americans and several former Italian intelligence officials for the 2003 abduction and alleged rendition of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr [JURIST news archive]. Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was seized on the streets of Milan by CIA agents with the help of Italy's Military Intelligence and Security Service. He was then allegedly transferred to Egypt and turned over to Egypt's State Security Intelligence, where he said he was tortured before being released [JURIST reports] in February 2007.

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