U.N. Rights Experts Interview Former U.S. Terror Detainees
Associated Press
June 29, 2005 4:17 p.m.
VIENNA – United Nations human-rights experts have started questioning former terrorist suspects released from U.S. detention as they investigate prison conditions and allegations that some people are being held in secret locations, a top U.N. official said Wednesday.
Manfred Nowak, the U.N.'s special expert on torture, said some undeclared holding areas could include U.S. ships in international waters. He said there were serious allegations to that effect from Amnesty International and other nongovernmental human-rights groups. I have heard these rumors and we have to follow them up, he said, urging the U.S. government to cooperate with the inquiry.
U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. John Skinner, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Defense Department does not operate detainee detention facilities on Navy warships. The department's detainee detention facilities are in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, said Col. Skinner.
Mr. Nowak is one of several independent human-rights experts appointed by the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission, the agency's top rights watchdog. He reports to the U.N. General Assembly and has great autonomy in deciding what to investigate, and said he didn't need to seek outside approval in launching the probe into U.S. detention practices and locations.
The U.S. has criticized the commission because its members include countries with poor human-rights records. But the experts operate independently and sometimes reproach their own countries for violations.
Our long-standing position is that we encourage countries to cooperate with the special rapporteurs of the commission, said Jose Diaz, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Their dialogue with the U.S. should continue so that they can be allowed to carry out their work.
Mr. Nowak said he and three other experts decided last week to launch the inquiry after holding off for more than three years in hopes Washington would give members access to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other facilities holding terrorist suspects. Last week, the four cited persistent and credible reports of torture at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay in urging Washington to allow them to check conditions there.
He expressed disappointment at the lack of U.S. response. Still, he said, he was assured after recent high-level meetings with U.S. officials that the request was being given highest consideration at the top level of the State Department [and] the Pentagon.
The team also would like to visit Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and other U.S.-run sites as well as to track down the allegations of clandestine prisons. He said team members had begun seeking firsthand information by interviewing former detainees.
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