Sweden Violated Torture Ban in CIA Rendition

[Judi Lynn]

Sweden Violated Torture Ban in CIA Rendition
10 Nov 2006 15:47:19 GMT

(New York, November 10, 2006)
The United Nations' ruling that Sweden violated the global torture ban in its involvement in the CIA transfer of an asylum seeker to Egypt is an important step toward establishing accountability for European governments complicit in illegal US renditions, Human Rights Watch said today. In a decision made public today, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that diplomatic assurances against torture did not provide an effective safeguard against ill-treatment in the case of an asylum seeker transferred from Sweden to Egypt by CIA operatives in December 2001. The committee decided that Sweden's involvement in the US transfer of Mohammed al-Zari to Egypt breached the absolute ban on torture, despite assurances of humane treatment provided by Egyptian authorities prior to the rendition.

Human Rights Watch today released a detailed briefing paper answering questions about such "diplomatic assurances."

"This UN ruling shows that we are slowly but surely getting to the truth about European complicity in illegal US renditions," said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "European parliaments and prosecutors must continue their inquiries into these matters."

Swedish officials handed over al-Zari and another Egyptian, Ahmed Agiza, to CIA operatives on December 18, 2001 for transfer from Stockholm to Cairo. Both men were asylum seekers in Sweden, and suspected of terrorist activities in Egypt, where torture of such suspects is commonplace. Returns to risk of torture are illegal under international law.
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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/4efc055660b9763d4c0deeca6a326d1e.htm

[VPStoltz]

1. You know when Sweden gets involved in torture

everything has pretty much gone to hell.

[izzie]

2. I wonder what they got for doing it?

This is why govt. must be open for all to see. Course it helps if the one person put in as a man for every one is watching out for those people. Ours in the President and Swedish I am not sure. PM? Nice to know some one is looking into it for them. Lets hop our House will do it for us.