AZERBAIJAN HELPED C.I.A. IN SECRET ARRESTS AND INTERROGATION OF SUSPECTS

20:12 05/02/2013 ” LAW

Some 54 countries helped facilitate the Central Intelligence Agency’s
secret detention, rendition and interrogation program in the years
after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a new human
rights report that documents broad international involvement in the
American campaign against Al Qaeda, the report of Globalizing Torture
initiative reads.

The report gives the detailed lists of the countries that helped
the CIA in the arrest of al-Qaeda members. The assistance of those
countries included things like permitting the C.I.A. to run secret
interrogation prisons on their soil and allowing the agency to use
their airports for refueling while moving prisoners around the world.

“Some of the harsh interrogation methods the C.I.A. used on prisoners
under President George W. Bush have been widely denounced as torture,
including by President Obama, who banned such techniques. In addition,
some prisoners subjected to extraordinary rendition – transferred
from one country to another without any legal process – were sent
to countries where torture is standard practice,” the New York
Times writes.

According to the report Amrit Singh, the author of the Open Society
report, “Globalizing Torture,” said she had found evidence that 25
countries in Europe, 14 in Asia and 13 in Africa lent some sort of
assistance to the C.I.A., in addition to Canada and Australia. “The
moral cost of these programs was borne not just by the U.S. but by
the 54 other countries it recruited to help,” Ms. Singh said.

Azerbaijan permitted use of its airports and airspace for flights
associated with CIA extraordinary rendition operations, and also
arrested an individual who was subjected to secret CIA detention.

“Aircraft linked to the CIA landed in Azerbaijan 76 times between
the end of 2001 and the end of 2005. Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku,
is reported to have been used as a common “staging point” for
extraordinary rendition operations, meaning that planes and crews
would often meet and prepare there. More specifically, U.S. court
records show that Richmor Aviation, a company that operated CIA
extraordinary rendition flights, landed two flights in Baku in 2004,”
the document says.

Besides that according to the report Azerbaijani officials also
arrested Saudi Arabian citizen Ahmed Muhammed al-Darbi in June 2002
and transferred him to U.S. custody in August 2002, after which he
was transferred to Bagram, Afghanistan and later to Guantanamo Bay,
where he remains imprisoned. “There are no known judicial cases or
investigations in Azerbaijan regarding its participation in CIA secret
detention and extraordinary rendition,” the report says.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress