Group Says U.S. Sent Up to 150 to Possible Torture Sites

Group Says U.S. Sent Up to 150 to Possible Torture Sites: "
April 24, 2005

WASHINGTON — A civil liberties group investigating allegations of prisoner abuse will report today that since the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. agents have secretly transported up to 150 detainees to countries that may practice torture.

Such transporting, known as rendition, is more widespread than the government has reported, according to Human Rights Watch. In a report issued a year after the earliest revelations of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, the group said the renditions, along with abuses of foreign detainees by U.S. forces, were possible violations of international law.

The group also said an Army investigation clearing top U.S. military commanders of wrongdoing in the scandal at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad established the need for an outside inquiry.

'This just proves the military can't investigate itself,' said Reed Brody, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch, which monitors civil rights issues around the world. 'It seems like another in a long line of attempts at self-absolution.'"