Friday, May 19, 2006



No justice for rendition

In 2004, Khaled el-Masri travelled to Macedonia for a holiday. While there, he was kidnapped, rendered, and tortured by the CIA because he had "a suspicious name". After five months of interrogation in Afghanistan by US agents, he was dumped in Albania without a passport, and left to fend for himself. So, he did what anyone would do in that situation: he sued, alleging that he had suffered "prolonged arbitrary detention, torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment". Now, a US judge has thrown the case out - but not because it is meritless or unsupported by the evidence. Instead, the case has been dismissed because allowing it to be brought might endanger "national security". So, the US can kidnap you, detain you, torture you, and then deny you any justice under their legal system for doing so, despite it being clearly illegal. And they wonder why people become terrorists...

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