Amnesty International has today called for the Government to review its renditions policy in the wake of a CIA Inspector General’s report yesterday.
"The fresh revelations that CIA agents carried out mock executions and made threats of violent torture shows just how much the world did not know about the Bush administration’s illegal actions,” said Amnesty International Ireland executive director Colm O’Gorman.
“For Ireland this raises again the policy of the Irish Government to rely on denials from the US Government that Shannon was used to transport prisoners. Similar assurances the US government gave Ireland, and the world, that it was not involved in torture are looking increasingly threadbare," he said.
Mr O'Gorman welcomed steps in the United States and Britain to investigate the use of torture by their agents, "but this exposes the failure of our own Government to investigate the use of Shannon airport and Irish airspace in US renditions operations".
“The Irish Government does not, and did not, know what went through Ireland’s airports on secret CIA flights.
“CIA planes illegally claimed to be civilian aircraft while travelling through our airspace and using Shannon Airport. The Irish Government has never investigated this. Our Government does not know because it chooses not to know," Mr O'Gorman said.
“It is now almost a year since the Government established a special cabinet sub-committee to review the law on searching suspected rendition flights. There has been little, if any, progress." Mr O'Gorman called on the Taoiseach to announce when the Cabinet review will take place.
US attorney general Eric Holder yesterday named a special prosecutor to examine CIA prisoner abuse cases. Mr Holder's decision came after the Justice Department's ethics watchdog recommended considering prosecution of CIA employees or contractors for harsh interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan that went beyond approved limits.
Career prosecutor John Durham will head the investigation, adding to the one he is already doing of the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects.
As Mr Holder made his decision, new details emerged about "enhanced" interrogation techniques used after the September 11th attacks on the United States under then-president George W. Bush but subsequently scratched by Mr Obama when he took office.
Bush officials, including vice president Dick Cheney, have denied that torture was used and defended their interrogation practices as legal.
Reuters