[prisoner-rights] US sent Guantanamo detainees home to torture in Russia

New Report Shows Why 'Diplomatic Assurances' Don't Work

(New York, March 29, 2007) -- Former Guantanamo detainees who were sent
home to Russia in 2004 experienced torture and other abuse despite
Moscow's pledge to the US government that they would be treated humanely,
Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The Russian prisoners' experience illustrates why the United States should
stop relying on "diplomatic assurances" of fair treatment to justify
sending prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to countries where they are at risk
of torture.

The seven Russians were all detained soon after the US invasion of
Afghanistan and eventually spent about two years in Guantanamo. Although
they complained of mistreatment by the Americans, all of the detainees
repeatedly asked authorities at Guantanamo not to be returned to Russia
because they expected to be treated worse there. And indeed, three of them
experienced serious torture and ill-treatment after being arrested in
Russia. Two of them were convicted at unfair trials, and all of them have
been harassed and hounded by Russian law enforcement.

The 43-page report, "The 'Stamp of Guantanamo:' The Story of Seven Men
Betrayed by Russia's Diplomatic Assurances to the United States
(http://www.hrw.org/reports/2007/russia0307/)," reconstructs the
experiences of the detainees after being returned to Russia in March 2004,
based on interviews with three of the detainees, their family members,
lawyers, and others. Access to the ex-detainees is limited because three
of them are in prison and the rest have either managed to leave the
country or are in hiding.

"The Russian experience shows why 'diplomatic assurances' simply don't
work," said Carroll Bogert, associate director of Human Rights Watch and
author of the report. "Governments with records of torture don't suddenly
change their behavior because the US government claims to have extracted
some kind of assurance from them."

The Convention against Torture stipulates that no person may be sent back
to a country where he is at real risk of torture and allows no exceptions
on national security or other grounds. The United States is a party to the
convention and is therefore violating international law in transferring
prisoners to countries where they may face torture. A US government
statement to Human Rights Watch made it clear that Washington was aware of
the threat of torture in Russia.

Many countries are attempting to deport or extradite terrorism suspects
with "diplomatic assurances," including the United Kingdom, Canada,
Austria, Netherlands, and Switzerland.

Human Rights Watch urged the US government to establish screening
procedures so that a person being transferred from Guantanamo Bay has an
effective opportunity to challenge his transfer before an impartial body.
Such procedures should also allow a detainee to challenge the reliability
of any diplomatic assurances the US government may have secured.

The US government has cleared some 80 detainees for release or transfer
from Guantanamo, but continues to hold them in detention nevertheless.
Human Rights Watch urged that any procedure to evaluate detainees' fear of
torture need not impede the pace of returns, or the ultimate goal of
shuttering the Guantanamo detention facilities entirely.

The US government says that Russian authorities promised to prosecute the
detainees on terrorism charges and to treat them humanely. They did
neither. After three months in Russian custody, during which they were not
abused, all seven ex-detainees were released and attempted to resume
normal lives in Russia, which proved impossible.

Rasul Kudaev, a resident of Kabardino-Balkaria in southern Russia, was
detained after an armed uprising in the provincial capital in October
2005. According to photographs, medical records, court documents, and the
testimony of lawyers and family members, Kudaev was repeatedly beaten in
custody in an effort to compel him to confess to involvement in the
uprising. He has still not been prosecuted for his alleged role in the
uprising, but remains in custody nearly a year and a half later.

Ravil Gumarov and Timur Ishmuratov, both residents of the Russian republic
of Tatarstan, were detained in April 2005 in connection with an explosion
on a local gas pipeline in which no one was killed or injured. They were
beaten in custody until they confessed; Gumarov was deprived of sleep for
approximately one week and shackled to a small cage with his hands over
his head, among other abuses.

Gumarov and Ishmuratov recanted their confessions at trial and were
acquitted by the jury in September 2005. However, local prosecutors got
the verdict "annulled" and won a conviction in May 2006.

"What happened to the former detainees is pretty standard for a lot of
suspects in police custody in Russia," said Bogert. "But that's just the
point. The US government knew that these men would likely be tortured, and
sent them back to Russia anyway."

Two of the detainees told Human Rights Watch that US interrogators at
Guantanamo had threatened to send them back to Russia if they did not
divulge information about their alleged terrorist activities.

The detainees and their families described frequent harassment by Russian
police and security services, particularly the Federal Security Service,
the successor to the KGB, and the Organized Crime Department of the
Ministry of the Interior. "I was told many times that after my time in
Guantanamo, it wasn't necessary to prove I was a terrorist," former
detainee Airat Vakhitov told Human Rights Watch. "That any one of us could
be thrown in jail because we were terrorists."

Human Rights Watch Press release