Originally published February 7 2006
CIA's independent watchdog investigates mistakenly snatched people
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The action of grabbing terrorist suspects off the street and flying them to another country where they are wanted for a crime or questioning is supposed to be reserved for the most serious terrorists. About 100 to 150 people have been taken since 9/11.
The CIA's independent watchdog is investigating fewer than 10 cases in which terrorist suspects may have been mistakenly swept away to foreign countries by the spy agency, a figure lower than published reports but enough to raise some concerns.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush gave the CIA authority to conduct the controversial operations, called "renditions," and permitted the agency to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or other administration offices.
The highly classified practice involves grabbing terrorist suspects off the street of one country and flying them to their home country or another where they are wanted for a crime or questioning.
Bush has said that these transfers to other countries --- with assurances the suspects won't be tortured --- are a way to protect the United States and its allies from attack.
The CIA's inspector general, John Helgerson, is looking into fewer than 10 cases of potentially "erroneous renditions," according to an intelligence official who requested anonymity because the investigations are classified.
Human-rights groups consider the practice of rendition an end-run to avoid the judicial processes that the United States has long championed.
We don't believe in torture," he said.
Senior administration officials have tried to stress that the cases are isolated instances among the more than 80,000 detainees held since the Sept. 11 attacks.
With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, has sued the CIA, saying it arbitrarily detained him after he was captured in Macedonia in December 2003 and taken to Afghanistan by a team of covert operatives in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
In 2005, he was released without charge and allowed to return to Sydney.
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