The United States and its allies in the George W. Bush administration’s “war on terror” must hold accountable anyone involved in the torture and the secret detention of suspects, a UN monitor said Tuesday.
Ben Emmerson, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s counter-terrorism expert, blasted the idea that obeying orders was any kind of defence.
“A statement of principle which says that those responsible are not to be held accountable in a criminal court merely because they were acting in accordance with authorisation from above is no more a defence for the CIA than it was it was a defence for the Gestapo,” Emmerson told reporters, referring to Nazi Germany’s secret police.
The high-profile British human rights lawyer said he was tired of the failure by Washington and other capitals to shed proper light on the issue, noting that probes had either been insufficient or their findings kept under wraps.
He said inquiries repeatedly had failed to call to account those involved in torture and “extraordinary rendition” — the transfer of individuals without legal process — to allow US and foreign intelligence agencies to interrogate alleged extremists outside the protections ensured on US soil.
Fifty-four foreign governments assisted the CIA in its global campaign, rights advocacy group the Open Society Foundations said in a study released last month.
Emmerson singled out Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Morocco and Thailand, all of which allegedly hosted secret CIA “black sites”.
He complained that governments were deploying the state secrecy argument to avoid calling individuals to account.
“The principle of state secrets is designed to protect legitimate national security interests,” he said.
“It is not, and never can be, a legitimate national security interest, to protect public officials from the consequences of their actions, to shield them and to perpetuate immunity for the commission of grave human rights violations, or systematic human rights violations.”
Human rights campaigners have been fiercely critical of what they see as excesses by then president Bush’s administration in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The US Senate’s intelligence committee in December approved a 6,000-page report on the CIA tactics. While the contents are classified, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s chairwoman, said secret detention sites and harsh interrogations were “terrible mistakes.”
Emmerson urged Washington to make the report public, if necessary blanking out names to safeguard individuals against reprisals.
He also said Britain should release an independent inquiry report submitted to the government in July 2012.
“We need to release these reports into the public domain, while at the same time lifting the suggestion that has been made that individuals who participated in these crimes or authorised them should enjoy some form of immunity from prosecution if they were acting in accordance with superior orders,” he said.
“That is not a defence recognised by international law,” he added.
UN monitor blasts US, allies over 'war on terror' probes
