CIA sent suspects to Jordan, group says
A human rights group said Tuesday that the CIA transferred at least 14 terrorism suspects to Jordan for interrogation after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Human Rights Watch reported that the U.S. ally in the Mideast served as a proxy jailer for the CIA until at least 2004.
“The Bush administration claims that it has not transferred people to foreign custody for abusive interrogation,” said Joanne Mariner, the group’s terrorism and counter-terrorism director. “But we’ve documented more than a dozen cases in which prisoners were sent to Jordan for torture.”
The group said its 36-page report was based mainly on information from former Jordanian prisoners who had been held with non-Jordanian terrorism suspects. It said five of the suspects sent to Jordan were now at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The group charged that Jordan commonly tortured suspects. Jordanian State Minister for Information Nasser Judeh called the findings “baseless and untrue,” the official Petra news agency reported.
The CIA declined to comment on the report. But spokesman Paul Gimigliano called such transfers, or renditions, a “lawful, valuable tool.”
“The United States does not transport individuals for the purpose of torture,” he said.
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