Door Duncan Campbell en Richard norton-Taylor | De Verenigde Staten stellen „drijvende gevangenissen in werking“ om die te huisvesten gearresteerd in zijn oorlog op verschrikking, volgens rechten van de mensadvocaten, die eisen er een poging is geweest om de aantallen en de verblijfplaats van gevangenen te verbergen.

De details van schepen waar de gevangenen zijn gehouden zijn en plaatsen die naar verluidt in landen over de wereld worden gebruikt gecompileerd aangezien het debat over detentie zonder proef aan beide kanten van de Atlantische Oceaan intensifi�ërt. De overheid van de V.S. werd gisteren aangespoord om van de namen en de verblijfplaats van vastgehouden die allemaal een lijst te maken.

De informatie over de verrichting van gevangenisschepen is door een aantal bronnen te voorschijn gekomen, met inbegrip van verklaringen uit de militaire V.S., de Raad van Europa en de verwante parlementaire organismen, en de verklaringen van gevangenen.

De analyse, gepast om dit jaar door Reprieve van de rechten van de mensorganisatie worden gepubliceerd, eist ook er meer dan 200 nieuwe gevallen van vertolking sinds 2006 zijn geweest, toen President George Bush verklaarde dat de praktijk had opgehouden.

Het is het gebruik van schepen om gevangenen vast te houden, echter, dat verse zorg en vraag naar onderzoeken in Groot-Brittannië en de V.S. opheft.

Volgens onderzoek dat door Reprieve wordt uitgevoerd, kunnen de V.S. wel 17 schepen als „drijvende gevangenissen“ sinds 2001 gebruikt hebben. De gevangenen worden ondervraagd aan boord van de schepen en dan teruggegeven aan vaak niet bekendgemaakte andere, wordt de plaatsen, het geëistl.

De schepen die worden begrepen om gevangenen gehouden te hebben omvatten USS Bataan en USS Peleliu. Verdere 15 schepen worden verdacht van rond het Britse grondgebied van Diego Garcia in de Indische Oceaan gewerkt te hebben, die als militaire basis door het UK en de Amerikanen is gebruikt.

Reprieve zal bijzondere zorgen over de activiteiten van USS Ashland en de tijd opheffen het van Somalië dat begin 2007 besteedde maritieme veiligheidsverrichtingen in een inspanning leidt om terroristen te vangen al-Qaida.

At this time many people were abducted by Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in a systematic operation involving regular interrogations by individuals believed to be members of the FBI and CIA. Ultimately more than 100 individuals were “disappeared” to prisons in locations including Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Guantánamo Bay.

Reprieve believes prisoners may have also been held for interrogation on the USS Ashland and other ships in the Gulf of Aden during this time.

The Reprieve study includes the account of a prisoner released from Guantánamo Bay, who described a fellow inmate’s story of detention on an amphibious assault ship. “One of my fellow prisoners in Guantánamo was at sea on an American ship with about 50 others before coming to Guantánamo … he was in the cage next to me. He told me that there were about 50 other people on the ship. They were all closed off in the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was like something you see on TV. The people held on the ship were beaten even more severely than in Guantánamo.”

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s legal director, said: “They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these ghost prisoners with their legal rights.

“By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been ‘through the system’ since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them.”

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, called for the US and UK governments to come clean over the holding of detainees.

“Little by little, the truth is coming out on extraordinary rendition. The rest will come, in time. Better for governments to be candid now, rather than later. Greater transparency will provide increased confidence that President Bush’s departure from justice and the rule of law in the aftermath of September 11 is being reversed, and can help to win back the confidence of moderate Muslim communities, whose support is crucial in tackling dangerous extremism.”

The Liberal Democrat’s foreign affairs spokesman, Edward Davey, said: “If the Bush administration is using British territories to aid and abet illegal state abduction, it would amount to a huge breach of trust with the British government. Ministers must make absolutely clear that they would not support such illegal activity, either directly or indirectly.”

A US navy spokesman, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, told the Guardian: “There are no detention facilities on US navy ships.” However, he added that it was a matter of public record that some individuals had been put on ships “for a few days” during what he called the initial days of detention. He declined to comment on reports that US naval vessels stationed in or near Diego Garcia had been used as “prison ships”.

The Foreign Office referred to David Miliband’s statement last February admitting to MPs that, despite previous assurances to the contrary, US rendition flights had twice landed on Diego Garcia. He said he had asked his officials to compile a list of all flights on which rendition had been alleged.

CIA “black sites” are also believed to have operated in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland and Romania.

In addition, numerous prisoners have been “extraordinarily rendered” to US allies and are alleged to have been tortured in secret prisons in countries such as Syria, Jordan, Morocco and Egypt.

RSS TrackBack URL