16 THE BIG ISSUE IN THE NORTH · 2-8 JULY 2012

Some were grabbed off the streets,blindfolded and bundled into theback of a car. Others were detainedat airports and taken away by forceon small private jets, often to secretlocations in countries known fortorture. Extraordinary rendition, akind of state-sanctioned kidnappingthat breaches international law,became a popular method used byUS authorities to capture terrorsuspects in the years following the2001 World Trade Center attacks.But only now are full details aboutthe practice, and the manycorporations that have profited fromit, beginning to emerge.

In recent weeks human rightsgroup Reprieve has been publicisingsome of the companies that helpedorganise the renditions, most carriedout under the authority of the GeorgeW Bush administration between 2001and 2008. Among the firms aremilitary contractors such as Virginia-based DynCorp, paid to organise thelogistics of rendition flights to placeslike Thailand, Egypt, Syria andMorocco. But there are also lessconspicuous firms that played a keyrole, some with strong UKconnections. One is ComputerSciences Corporation (CSC), an ITfirm that has held contracts with theNHS and Transport for London.

“The role played by the primecontracting companies – DynCorpand CSC – was extremelysignificant,” says Crofton Black, aReprieve investigator. “Theybasically ran a significant proportionof the entire project in terms ofhelping move people around betweendetention sites. The various operatingcompanies that provided theairplanes and crews are significanttoo, because it’s unlikely these guysdidn’t know what was happening intheir planes.”

According to Reprieve, courtdocuments show that CSC organisedrendition flights on behalf of the USCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) tocarry prisoners between a number oflocations, including the notoriousGuantánamo Bay detention camp andsecret “black sites” in North Africa,South East Asia and Eastern Europe.It is alleged that the prisoners wereheld incommunicado and torturedduring lengthy interrogations. CSC,which turned over £10.2 billion in

The practice of secretly flying terrorsuspects to places they can be torturedhas been a blot on the West’s humanrights record since it was unearthedfollowing 9/11. Now new revelationsabout the organisations involved arecoming to light. By Ryan Gallagher

Web of dmissions were going on in 2005’. Butthey can’t say that anymore.”

New information about the scale ofBritain’s role in rendition has alsobeen revealed. In the wake of thecivil war in Libya last year,documents were uncovered showingthat in 2004 MI6 had helped USauthorities abduct Libyan dissidentAbdelhakim Belhadj and hispregnant wife in Bangkok, wherethey were flown to Tripoli andabused by Muammar Gaddafi’s secretpolice.

Belhadj is now suing MI6 and thenforeign secretary Jack Straw, MP forBlackburn, for complicity in tortureand misfeasance in public office.Government sources say MI6’s role inrendition was part of “ministeriallyauthorised government policy” – butStraw has gone on record claimingthat “no foreign secretary can knowall the details of what its intelligenceagencies are doing at any one time”.

In other countries too therepercussions of extraordinaryrendition continue to be felt. InMarch, Poland became the first EUcountry to indict one of its officialsover CIA renditions, with thecountry’s prime minister promisingan end to “under-the-table deals”. Itis alleged that a military garrison inthe north east of Poland was used asa CIA black site where terror suspectswere interrogated and subjected to

2011, has a string of British investors,including Barclays, Lloyds, HSBCand Prudential.

Earlier this year, Reprieve wroteand asked CSC to sign a pledgepromising that it would not beinvolved in rendition, secretdetention and torture in the future.The company declined, saying thatindividual pledges on specific topicswere “not within the framework” ofits existing corporate responsibilityprogramme. Reprieve is now writingto investors in the company askingthem to “confirm whether investingin companies implicated in torture iscompatible with their ethicalcommitments”.

“CSC has explicitly refused to ruleout taking on such missions in thefuture,” Black says. “It’s fine for theinvestors to say, with the benefit ofhindsight, that ‘we didn’t know such

BITN 934_16,17 (rendition) 29/6/12 10:47 Page 16

Lawful Interrogations” to increaseoversight. But he didn’t outlawextraordinary renditions.

Obama has also significantlyheightened the use of unmannedmilitary drones to bomb suspectedmilitants in places such as Pakistanand Yemen. Some argue that, toavoid using the costly andcontroversial rendition method,Obama has favoured drone strikes –killing rather than capturing.

“It’s expensive to detain people inprison,” Blakeley says. “A lot of

people say drone attacks are Obama’spreference because you just get rid ofthe people and you don’t have all themessy stuff afterwards to deal with...It avoids the public outcry aroundrendition.”

London-based human rights groupCage Prisoners, founded byBirmingham-born Moazzam Begg, aformer Guantánamo detainee,believes rendition is still happeningtoday but on a lesser scale. Thegroup, which campaigns to raiseawareness about individuals heldextra-judicially as part of the so-called war on terror, argues publicinquiries into extraordinary renditionare the only way to redress theabuses of international law thatbecame commonplace after 2001.

“There’s no way that we canadequately compensate those whohad these things happen to them,”says Asim Qureshi, executivedirector at Cage Prisoners. “In thegrand scheme of things, for thosepeople inquiries mean nothing,because they’ve already had theirlives ruined by renditions.

“But for the future they becomeimportant, because this is effectivelythe way the human rights industrycan fight back – by bringing theselegal cases, by having the process ofaccountability, and by really placingthe emphasis back on due processand the rule of law.”

17

R E N D I T I O N F L I G H T S

waterboarding, a kind of torture thatmakes a person feel as if they aredrowning.

More revelations may soon emergeas part of a major new academiceffort to pull together all theinformation that has so far publishedabout extraordinary rendition.Launched by University of Kentacademic Dr Ruth Blakeley lastmonth, the Rendition Project isstudying reams of court documentsand flight logs, collating data abouthundreds of victims of rendition andsecret detention since 2001. It hopesto chronicle the 45 countries, 6,500flights and 140 aircraft allegedlyconnected to the CIA renditionsprogramme.

“I don’t think the world is verywell informed about the types ofthings that governments in the USand UK do,” Blakeley says,explaining her motivation for startingthe project. “On both sides of thepond current governments don’treally want to carry outinvestigations [into rendition]because their own records are notthat squeaky clear either.”

Prior to coming in to office in 2008,US president Barack Obamacondemned many of hispredecessor’s more aggressivecounter-terror policies. He barredwaterboarding and signed anexecutive order entitled “Ensuring

The renditionprogramme couldhave involved6,500 flights, 140aircraft and 45countries

2-8 JULY 2012 · THE BIG ISSUE IN THE NORTH

TORTURE BY PROXYHuman rights groups say rendition is“torture by proxy” and argue transferringterror suspects to third-party countriesknown for brutal interrogation techniquesis part of a deliberate strategy to avoidAmerican legal standards. The practice isprohibited by the United NationsConvention Against Torture and OtherForms of Cruel, Inhuman, or DegradingTreatment, ratified by the US in 1992.

A public inquiry into British securityforces’ role in the mistreatment ofterrorism suspects since 9/11 – includinginvolvement in extraordinary rendition –was announced by the government in2010. However, due to ongoing policeinvestigations it was cancelled in Januarythis year. In a statement, the justiceminister Ken Clarke said: “Thegovernment fully intends to hold anindependent, judge-led inquiry once allpolice investigations have concluded, toestablish the full facts and draw a lineunder these issues.”f deceit

LIVERPOOL FC LINKA private jet owned by Phillip Morse, vice-president of LiverpoolFC’s parent company Fenway Sports Group, was hired to a firmworking for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) more than 55times between 2002 and 2005. It was used to extraordinarilyrender terrorism suspects from locations in Europe to countriesincluding Thailand, Malta, Egypt, Libya, Djibouti and Azerbaijan,where they were allegedly tortured during interrogation.

In 2003, Morse’s jet was used to render a Muslim cleric knownas Abu Omar from Italy to Egypt. Omar, who American authoritiesaccused of plotting terrorism, was snatched by CIA agents on aMilan street in broad daylight. He was subsequently flown toEgypt and imprisoned in Tura, 20 miles south of Cairo, where heclaims he was twice raped, suffered electro shock treatment andlost the hearing in his left ear due to repeated beatings. Omarwas eventually released by the Egyptian government in 2007,after a state security court ruled that his detention was“unfounded”. An Italian judge later convicted, in absentia, 23 CIAoperatives over the kidnapping.

BITN 934_16,17 (rendition) 29/6/12 10:47 Page 17