All US government employees are prohibited from torturing detainees, White House staff told a UN panel questioning US compliance with international human rights law.
The US delegation, making its first appearance before the UN Committee Against Torture in six years, addressed of issues ranging from Washington’s interpretation of the absolute ban on torture to its interrogation methods in prisons such as Abu Ghraib, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“US officials from all government agencies are prohibited from engaging in torture at all times and in all places,” said John Bellinger, a State Department legal adviser who is leading the US delegation. “This is the case even in situations where the law of armed conflict applies.”
Charles Stimson, the US deputy assistant secretary of defence, said the United States had failed in its duty to protect detainees in Iraq.
“We feel terrible about what happened to these Iraqi detainees,” Stimson said. “We didn’t do that [protect them] and that was wrong.”
Last week, members of the UN Committee Against Torture told the United States it had to set a better example in combating torture and could not hide behind “intelligence activities” in refusing to discuss violations of the global ban on prisoner abuse in the war on terror.
The US delegation told the committee that mistakes had occurred in the US treatment of detainees in the war against terror, and that 29 detainees had died in US facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan from what appeared to be abuse or other violations of US law.
Andreas Mavrommatis, who chaired the session, said the US investigations would be more convincing if they were conducted by an independent judge or lawyer.
Bellinger said the 25-member delegation was committed to answering the panel’s questions, but would be unable to discuss “alleged intelligence activities”.
Jamil Dakwar, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the US government needed to take “vigorous and sincere measures” to end secret imprisonment and detainee abuse and hold officials accountable.
The ACLU gave the panel more than 200 pages of US documents which, he said, proved the abuse of detainees was systemic and widespread.
Criticism by the UN panel brings no penalties beyond international scrutiny, but Daskal said it could influence US public opinion and hence the government. The committee is to issue conclusions after its session on May 19.
SAM CAGE, Geneva May 09 2006, AP
Source: www.theherald.co.uk
