[Infowarrior] - US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships

[Richard Forno]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/02/usa.humanrights

US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships

· Report says 17 boats used
· MPs seek details of UK role
· Europe attacks 42-day plan

     * Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor
     * The Guardian,
     * Monday June 2 2008
     * Article history

An amphibious assault vehicle leaves the USS Peleliu, which was used  
to detain prisoners, according to the human rights group Reprieve

An amphibious assault vehicle leaves the USS Peleliu, which was used  
to detain prisoners, according to the human rights group Reprieve.  
Photograph: Zack Baddor/AP

The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those  
arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who  
claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts  
of detainees.

Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly  
being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the  
debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the  
Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and  
whereabouts of all those detained.

Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a  
number of sources, including statements from the US military, the  
Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the  
testimonies of prisoners.

The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights  
organisation Reprieve, also claims there have been more than 200 new  
cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared  
that the practice had stopped.

It is the use of ships to detain prisoners, however, that is raising  
fresh concern and demands for inquiries in Britain and the US.

According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as  
many as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Detainees are  
interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often  
undisclosed, locations, it is claimed.

Ships that are understood to have held prisoners include the USS  
Bataan and USS Peleliu. A further 15 ships are suspected of having  
operated around the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian  
Ocean, which has been used as a military base by the UK and the  
Americans.

Reprieve will raise particular concerns over the activities of the USS  
Ashland and the time it spent off Somalia in early 2007 conducting  
maritime security operations in an effort to capture al-Qaida  
terrorists.

At this time many people were abducted by Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian  
forces in a systematic operation involving regular interrogations by  
individuals believed to be members of the FBI and CIA. Ultimately more  
than 100 individuals were "disappeared" to prisons in locations  
including Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Guantánamo Bay.

Reprieve believes prisoners may have also been held for interrogation  
on the USS Ashland and other ships in the Gulf of Aden during this time.

The Reprieve study includes the account of a prisoner released from  
Guantánamo Bay, who described a fellow inmate's story of detention on  
an amphibious assault ship. "One of my fellow prisoners in Guantánamo  
was at sea on an American ship with about 50 others before coming to  
Guantánamo ... he was in the cage next to me. He told me that there  
were about 50 other people on the ship. They were all closed off in  
the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was like  
something you see on TV. The people held on the ship were beaten even  
more severely than in Guantánamo."

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "They choose  
ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the  
prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these  
ghost prisoners with their legal rights.

"By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at  
least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information  
suggests up to 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. The  
US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by  
immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what  
has been done to them."

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the all-party  
parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, called for the US and  
UK governments to come clean over the holding of detainees.

"Little by little, the truth is coming out on extraordinary rendition.  
The rest will come, in time. Better for governments to be candid now,  
rather than later. Greater transparency will provide increased  
confidence that President Bush's departure from justice and the rule  
of law in the aftermath of September 11 is being reversed, and can  
help to win back the confidence of moderate Muslim communities, whose  
support is crucial in tackling dangerous extremism."

The Liberal Democrat's foreign affairs spokesman, Edward Davey, said:  
"If the Bush administration is using British territories to aid and  
abet illegal state abduction, it would amount to a huge breach of  
trust with the British government. Ministers must make absolutely  
clear that they would not support such illegal activity, either  
directly or indirectly."

A US navy spokesman, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, told the Guardian:  
"There are no detention facilities on US navy ships." However, he  
added that it was a matter of public record that some individuals had  
been put on ships "for a few days" during what he called the initial  
days of detention. He declined to comment on reports that US naval  
vessels stationed in or near Diego Garcia had been used as "prison  
ships".

The Foreign Office referred to David Miliband's statement last  
February admitting to MPs that, despite previous assurances to the  
contrary, US rendition flights had twice landed on Diego Garcia. He  
said he had asked his officials to compile a list of all flights on  
which rendition had been alleged.

CIA "black sites" are also believed to have operated in Thailand,  
Afghanistan, Poland and Romania.

In addition, numerous prisoners have been "extraordinarily rendered"  
to US allies and are alleged to have been tortured in secret prisons  
in countries such as Syria, Jordan, Morocco and Egypt.