- Title: USA/FILE: Report details U.S.-led abuses of Gaddafi enemies.
- Date: 6th September 2012
- Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (SEPTEMBER 5, 2012) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) LAURA PITTER COUNTER-TERRORISM ADVISOR AT HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, SAYING: "The treatment in Libya was very bad. They were subjected to more isolated incidents of abuse and beatings and some received electric shocks and summary trials, and solitary confinement, but it was ironically not as bad as what they received in U.S. custody." VARIOUS OF PAGES IN REPORT WITH PHOTO IMAGES OF DOCUMENTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) LAURA PITTER COUNTER-TERRORISM ADVISOR AT HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, SAYING: "It was just shocking to see it... we knew there had been renditions. It wasn't a surprise, but I guess it was a surprise to see it in black and white."
- Embargoed: 21st September 2012 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Libya
- City:
- Country: Libya
- Topics: Crime,International Relations,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVAC23Q64BP3FOGODXE55RKDRD19
- Aspect Ratio:
- Story Text: Using documents found after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi and interviews with former Libyan detainees, a Human Right Watch report details how the U.S. abused and sent back to Libya opponents of Gaddafi.
The U.S. led secret operations to torture and return to Libya opponents of Muammar Gaddafi, according to a report by the Human Rights Watch released on Thursday (September 6).
According to Human Rights Watch, after the fall of Libya leader Muammar Gaddafi, it discovered once-secret documents that detail abuse and renditions. The human rights group said the documents were discovered in the abandoned offices of former Libyan intelligence chief Musa Kusa.
"This report stems from some documents that we found in Libya after the rebel forces took over. They were abandoned and they were in the external security building and they were in folders marked U.S. and U.K. and inside were communications between the CIA, MI6 and the Libyan Intelligence Agency. And those communications documented.. they showed in black and white that the U.S. and the U.K. had assisted and actually took part in the renditions. They rendered a number of individuals that were opposed to Gaddafi back to Libya.... These were individuals who were head of a opposition group who had been opposed to Gaddafi for many years and had been trying to overthrow him from abroad, from various bases abroad," said Laura Pitter, counter-terrorism advisor and author of the report.
According to Pitter, the 154-page report is based on Libyan-kept documents as well as interviews with 14 detainees who were released from Libyan prisons last year. Many of the detainees were members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). Other members of the LIFG joined forces with other rebel groups to overthrow Gaddafi in 2011 with support from NATO.
Pitter said the information details how the U.S. picked up rebels in various countries including Pakistan and Mauritania, then sent the men to secret CIA camps in Afghanistan, where they were abused with waterboarding and other forms of torture. From Afghanistan, Gaddafi's opponents were sent back to Libya amid renewed relations between Libya and the U.S. following the September 11th attacks.
The report details support for the U.S. from the U.K. as well as countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
"From Afghanistan, they were sent directly to Libya and interestingly they were sent during a time when there had just been a rapprochement, a sort of agreement between the U.K. and the U.S. were trying to court Gaddafi to give up his weapons of mass destruction and cooperate on terrorism and Gaddafi was very interested in having his enemies brought back to Libya. So, it's very plausible that a lot of the information he was providing to the U.S. and the U.K. was information about his enemies who he clearly linked to al-Qaeda and said were dangerous, probably posed them as being a serious dangers to the U.S. All of the men that I interviewed said they were not enemies of the U.S.," said Pitter.
"The treatment in Libya was very bad. They were subjected to more isolated incidents of abuse and beatings and some received electric shocks and summary trials, and solitary confinement, but it was ironically not as bad as what they received in U.S. custody," she added.
The documents published in the report reveal rendition orders, travel plans and other sensitive information.
"It was just shocking to see it... we knew there had been renditions. It wasn't a surprise, but I guess it was a surprise to see it in black and white."
Pitter said the renditions came at an opportune time for the U.K.
In 2003, Gaddafi agreed to pay compensation to the victims of the Lockerbie plane bombing. After the start of the renditions to Libya, in March 2004, U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Gaddafi and the Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell announced a $1 billion (USD) deal with Libya for gas exploration off the Libyan coast.
"The first renditions of the senior LIFG people who come back to Libya... it's exactly... just weeks before Tony Blair flew to Tripoli and shook hands with Muammar Gaddafi in a very historic kind of agreement. And three days later, another one was sent and then a few months later, four more were sent to Libya, another one a month later. Of the 14, that I interviewed, 10 were returned to Libya within a year of that rapprochement. So, it's just interesting timing."
Pitter said the U.S. must come clean.
"I mean the U.S. really needs to acknowledge what happened. If there was wrongdoing, acknowledge the wrongdoing, so that it's clear that this was a mistake and that it isn't going to happen again. It's important because it's right for the U.S. to call out other countries for their human rights violations, in Syria and Sri Lanka, but it really undermines their credibility and their ability to do so when they shield their own officials from public scrutiny and investigation into serious abuses that went on in these places."
Human Rights Watch said it has sent copies of the report to the governments of the U.S. and U.K. So far, it said, there has been no response. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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