U.S.-Held Prisoners Transferred Abroad Subjected to Torture

Interview with Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, conducted by Scott Harris

Despite repeated denials from President Bush and others in his administration that the US government does not engage in torture or hand over prisoners to nations that do, a number of eyewitness accounts and press reports contradict those White House assertions. After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, the Bush administration adopted a policy called, "extraordinary rendition" that permitted the transfer of a small number of terrorist suspects to nations that employed brutal interrogation methods illegal in the U.S.

In recent years, the government's "rendition" policy has greatly expanded, with estimates placing the number of U.S.-held prisoners transferred to nations employing torture at 150. Those who have been subject to the policy include Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was detained in New York City and then sent to Syria, where he suffered months of torture before being released without charge. Another prisoner, Mamdouh Habib, accused of training several of the 9/11 hijackers, was held in the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention facility and later transferred to Egypt where he claims he was beaten and burned. A piece in the Feb. 8th edition of the New Yorker magazine by Jane Mayer, titled, "Outsourcing Torture," details the rendition program and some of the allegations made against the Bush administration.

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a principal attorney for prisoners being held at the Guantanamo U.S. Naval Base. Ratner expresses his grave concern about the rendition policy and the message sent to the world by the recent Senate confirmation of Alberto Gonzalez as the Bush administration's new Attorney General.

Contact the Center for Constitutional Rights by calling (212) 614-6464, or visit the Center's website at www.ccr-ny.org. Michael Ratner is co- author along with Ellen Ray of the book: "Guantanamo: What The World Should Know."

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