Outsourcing Torture?

Sources estimate that between 100 and 150 individuals have been subjected to extraordinary rendition since the end of 2001. That is, the U.S. has forcibly relocated an individual from one country to another for a given purpose. Many of these individuals are Muslims of various nationalities who are transferred to other Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Yemen, in which harsh interrogation techniques and conditions of detention are commonplace. For example:

•In December 2003, Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was seizedby the police in Macedonia and turned over to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials. El-Masri was rendered to a detention center in Afghanistan, where he was subjected to harsh interrogation techniques. CIA officials released El-Masri four months later after realizing that they had mistaken him for a terrorist of a similar name.

• In October 2002, Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was arrested in Pakistan and, reportedly at the request of U.S. authorities, flown to Egypt where he was allegedly tortured. Habib remained in Egypt for six months, after which he was transferred to the United States detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

• In September 2002, Maher Arar, a dual citizen of Canada and Syria, was in transit at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on his way to Montreal following a family vacation in Tunisia. U.S. officials detained Arar on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities. They later arranged for his transportation to Syria, where he was beaten with electrical cables, repeatedly interrogated, and detained in a tiny cell for several months. After the Canadian government intervened, the Syrian government released Arar in October 2003.

• In December, 2001, Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed al-Zari were expelled from Sweden and transferred to Egypt. The two men were flown on a private jet owned by a U.S. company that reportedly is used primarily by the U.S. government. Both men were asylum seekers, but had been excluded from refugee status based on evidence that they were associated with Islamist terrorist groups. To justify the expulsions, Sweden relied upon “diplomatic assurances”—a formal guarantee issued by the Egyptian government that its officials and agents would not torture Agiza and al-Zari. Both men allege that they were in fact tortured and mistreated in prison after their transfer to Egypt.

The principal objection is that U.S. officials have abducted or orchestrated the abduction of suspected terrorists outside of the United States and transferred them to countries known to employ coercive interrogation techniques that involve torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.