Still "...hoping for change..." (but expecting none) - ARAR REDUX? (Bill Fisher)

Still "...hoping for change..."
(but expecting none)

Our new president, president Obama, has no major problem with 'rendition' either.

But in certain countries of Europe Justice trumps 'hope'.
See: "CIA verdict in Italy challenges Obama on renditions".

ARAR REDUX?

November 09 2009

By William Fisher

On the heels of a federal appeals court ruling that only Congress and the executive branch of government – not the courts -- can interfere with government-sponsored “extraordinary rendition, ” a U.S. citizen from New Jersey is asking another court to tell the government it wasn’t OK to secretly imprison and abuse him in three different African countries over a period of four months.

The citizen is Amir Meshal, 24, the son of Muslim immigrants from Egypt.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed the lawsuit in Meshal’s behalf, after fleeing hostilities in Somalia in 2006, Meshal was arrested, secretly imprisoned in inhumane conditions and subjected to harsh interrogations by U.S. officials over 30 times in three different countries before ultimately being released four months later without charge,

"This case challenges the US government’s effort to evade accountability for illegal detention and interrogations in counter-terrorism operations by masking and hiding its involvement," Jonathan Hafetz, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, told IPS.

According to the ACLU, Meshal was studying Islam in Mogadishu, Somalia, in December 2006, when hostilities broke out. With the airport disabled by bombing, Meshal fled to neighboring Kenya, where he wandered in the forest for three weeks seeking shelter and assistance before being arrested. Following his arrest, he was detained and repeatedly interrogated by U.S. officials who threatened to harm him, denied him access to counsel and accused him of receiving training from al-Qaeda, which Meshal denied.

Following his arrest and detention in Kenya, the suit says Meshal was illegally rendered to Somalia and then to Ethiopia where he was imprisoned in secret for over three months. There, U.S. officials subjected him to harsh interrogations while denying him due process and access to a lawyer, his family or anyone else in the outside world...

[In Full at 'The World According To Bill Fisher]