LONDON — Question: How does the United States obtain intelligence from captured Al Qaida prisoners without torturing them?
Answer: They have hired Jordan to in effect serve as a
torture subcontractor of Al Qaida agents, a new report charges.
Amnesty International said Jordanian authorities were routinely
torturing Al Qaida suspects sought by the United States. An Amnesty report
said the United States has employed interrogation centers in Jordan to
obtain confessions. Jordan, which has encountered numerous Al Qaida attacks
and plots, has dismissed the report.
"Jordan appears to be a central hub in a global complex of secret
detention centers operated by the U.S. in coordination with foreign
intelligence agencies," said Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty's Middle
East and North Africa unit and an author of the report.
The Amnesty report raised similar allegations to those by the European
Commission in June. The EC said Washington has used Syria as a contractor
for the torture and detention of Al Qaida fugitives.
Since 2001, Jordan has become vital to the U.S.-led war against Al
Qaida, the report said. Amnesty said Jordan, particularly its General
Intelligence Department, has played a major role in helping the secret
transfer, as well as detention and interrogation, of Al Qaida suspects.
"According to media interviews with former senior U.S. intelligence
officials, U.S.-Jordanian security and intelligence cooperation is so close
that the CIA has had technical personnel 'virtually embedded' at the
headquarters of the GID, which such former officials have alleged receives
secret funding from the U.S. government," the report said.
The Amnesty report said more than 100 defendants claimed they were
tortured in Jordan. The report said U.S. intelligence agents were also
helping operate a secret detention center at Al Jafr.
"The prison is several kilometers southeast of the Al Jafr King Faisal
Air Base, where U.S. military forces mobilized in the lead-up to the 2003
invasion of Iraq," the report said. "In June 2004 it was reported that the
U.S. Corps of Army Engineers had been contracted in a multi-million dollar
deal to design and construct at Al Jafr a 'contingency aircraft parking
apron.'"
In 2006, Britain and Jordan signed a memorandum of understanding that
stipulated the extradition of insurgency suspects. Under the MoU, Amman
pledged that it would not torture suspects transferred by London.
Amnesty urged Jordan to reduce the powers of the General Intelligence
Department, linked to the office of the prime minister. The report also
recommended that authorities promptly investigate and prosecute officers
accused of torture.
