UN and rights groups demand prosecutions

WASHINGTON: The United Nations and human rights groups called Tuesday for the criminal prosecution of US officials after a Senate report detailed a brutal CIA torture programme.
But the Justice Department rejected pursuing charges against anyone involved in the interrogations, saying it had not found anything in the scathing, heavily detailed report that could lead to a successful conviction.
The rights groups and the UN's top rights defender said the report shows the Central Intelligence Agency's secret efforts to extract information from detainees after the 9/11 attacks repeatedly violated international law and basic human rights.
The 524-page summary report from the Senate Intelligence Committee details extensive waterboarding, beatings and other extreme "interrogation techniques" used on detainees.
The report "confirms what the international community has long believed – that there was a clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the (George W.) Bush administration, which allowed to commit systematic crimes and gross violations of international human rights law," said Ben Emmerson, UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights.
"It is now time to take action. The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today's report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes."
Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the report "shocking", saying: "It is impossible to read it without feeling immense outrage that our government engaged in these terrible crimes."
"The government officials who authorised illegal activity need to be held accountable," Romero said.
The ACLU called on President Barack Obama to appoint a special prosecutor to examine "the role played by the senior officials most responsible for it and by those who tried to cover up crimes."
"If there is sufficient evidence of criminal conduct, the offenders should be prosecuted," it said.
The group acknowledged that Obama has already ended the torture programme, but said the CIA needs to be forbidden from other activities related to it, including holding people in custody or operating detention centres like those where the torture took place.
And it said that the government should apologise to and compensate victims of US torture policies, in compliance with international law.
Such moves would "help ensure that the United States never tortures again," it said. – AFP