[prisoner-rights] USA: Independent investigation needed into Iraqi 'ghost detainees', says Human Rights Watch

(New York, September 10, 2004)—Revelations that U.S. forces hid dozens of
Iraqi detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross require
an independent investigation, Human Rights Watch said today.

Secret detention is the gateway to torture. History shows that when people
are taken off the books, they become vulnerable to mistreatment, torture
and even 'disappearance.'

U.S. Army investigators told Congress on Thursday that detainees at
Baghdad's infamous Abu Ghraib prison—ranging from two dozen to as many as
100—were hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
at the request of the Central Intelligence Agency, which refused repeated
requests to cooperate with two Pentagon probes. Keeping detained
belligerents from the ICRC violates the Geneva Conventions and subjects
them to potential abuse.

"Secret detention is the gateway to torture," said Reed Brody, Special
Counsel at Human Rights Watch. "History shows that when people are taken
off the books, they become vulnerable to mistreatment, torture and even
'disappearance.'"

Gen. Paul Kern, the senior officer who oversaw the Army inquiry, told the
Senate Armed Services Committee that "The number [of ghost detainees] is
in the dozens, to perhaps up to 100." Another Army investigator, Maj. Gen.
George Fay, put the figure at "two dozen or so." Both officers said they
could not give a precise number because no records were kept and because
the CIA refused to provide information to the investigators.

Previously, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had acknowledged that in one
case last November, acting at the request of then-CIA Director George
Tenet, he ordered that a senior Iraqi detainee be held off the books at
Iraq's Camp Cropper detention center.

"The revelations about 'ghost detainees' show that the policy of detainee
abuse not only reaches the highest levels of the U.S. government, but is
spread across its different agencies," said Brody. "It is increasingly
obvious that only an independent panel, along the lines of the September
11 commission, can begin to repair the damage done by Abu Ghraib."

The Third Geneva Convention in article 126 (concerning prisoners of war)
and the Fourth Geneva Convention in article 143 (concerning detained
civilians) requires the ICRC to have access to all detainees and places of
detention. Visits may only be prohibited for "reasons of imperative
military necessity" and then only as "an exceptional and temporary
measure."

Human Rights Watch Press release