A new report released Wednesday by the human rights group Amnesty International says that the CIA used private airplanes owned by front companies to send terror suspects to secret locations or to send them to countries that condoned torture.
The report was titled 'Below the Radar: Secret Flights to Torture and 'Disappearance.'' It accuses the U.S. of using the practice of 'rendition' to avoid judicial and administrative oversight of its actions. Rendition is the illegal transfer of suspects and detainees from one location to another.
According to Amnesty International, almost 1,000 flights used to transfer terrorism suspects were directly linked to the CIA and most of them used European airspace.
'The U.S. administration has tried to circumvent the ban on torture and other ill-treatment in many ways,' explained Irene Khan, secretary-general of Amnesty International. 'The latest evidence shows how the administration is manipulating commercial arrangements in order to be able to transfer people in violation of international law. It demonstrates the length to which the U.S. government will go to conceal these abductions,' she said.
The report offers details as to the destinations the suspects were sent to and who owned the planes in question.
One aircraft mentioned in the report made more than 100 stops at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. is holding as many as 500 people without charge as part of the war on terror.
Thus far, there has been no comment on the report from the Bush administration.
