Bush-era torture and extraordinary rendition have been pushed aside by the Obama administration, as it still seeks to look forward, not backward. But a group of international parliamentarians revived the troubling issue in calling for serious investigations now, not later, reports Nat Parry.
2012-07-23 - An international body last week unanimously adopted a resolution condemning US secrecy regarding the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program – secrecy that is effectively stonewalling a number of European investigations into the program of secret arrests and torture of terror suspects.
Supporting the criminal investigation carried out by Polish authorities into the rendition program and welcoming attempts by British parliamentarians to ascertain the level of the United Kingdom’s involvement, the resolution “insists that the United States Government co-operates with European investigations” and “calls upon the United States to release any pertinent information to appropriate investigators.”
In introducing the resolution on July 6, British parliamentarian Tony Lloyd recalled that when President Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, one of his first acts was to issue executive orders prohibiting rendition and torture.
However, Lloydsaid, there are “strong evidential trails that suggest members of the OSCE family were involved in this practice of unlawful transfer of prisoners” throughout Europe, the Middle East and Afghanistan. He pointed to cases of prisoners being unlawfully detained by the CIA in Italy and the United Kingdom. read more>>>
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