VIENNA, April 18, 2009
U.N. Official: No Pass For Torturers
Despite Obama's Decision To Give CIA Immunity, Investigator Says U.S. Is Bound By Int'l Law To Prosecute
On Thursday, Obama absolved CIA officers from prosecution for harsh, painful interrogation of terror suspects under the former Bush administration.
The announcement was met with disappointment from human rights groups and former detainees who condemned such methods as torture.
In a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press, Manfred Nowak, an Austrian who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, said the United States had committed itself under the U.N. Convention against Torture to make torture a crime and to prosecute those suspected of engaging in it.
"They are party to the convention and the convention is very, very clear," Nowak said when asked to confirm comments contained in an interview he gave Austria's Der Standard newspaper. "The fact that you carried out an order doesn't relieve you of your responsibility," he said, adding it could be a mitigating factor.
Nowak, who said he would soon travel to Washington for meetings with officials, also called for a comprehensive independent investigation into the matter and added it was important to compensate the victims.
Quote
"Now we need to know all the facts - not just bits and pieces," Nowak said. "First you need the truth, and then you need justice."
First you need the truth, and then you need justice.
Manfred Nowak, U.N. special rapporteurThe Obama administration on Thursday also released secret CIA memos detailing interrogation tactics sanctioned under Bush.
The memos authorized keeping detainees naked, in painful standing positions and in cold cells for long periods of time. Other techniques included depriving them of solid food and slapping them. Sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling and threats to a detainee's family also were used.
For more info:
By Associated Press Writer Veronika Oleksyn
© MMIX The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
- CBSNews.com on Digg
More From 100 Days
Add a Comment See all 123 Comments
- Of all the detainees who were water boarded, not one of them drowned. However the innocent Americans caught by the taliwacker were immediately executed. Some were beheaded. However we forgive them. (NOT) Most of the comments on this blog are anti-American. None of you have been in a war and do not qualify to comment.
- Reply to this comment
- Prosecute.
- Reply to this comment
- I believe that George Bush And Dick Cheney should have every interrogation tecnique that was used against the people that were innocent untill proven guilty used on them, to determine how many times They lied to the American People
- Reply to this comment
- The US signed the Geneva Conventions....LONG BEFORE there was a UN and well before World War II. The treatment of civilians and POWs in wartime was clearly defined.
The previous Bush Administration cannot sidestep treaty obligations that the International Red Cross has clearly reported violations thereof for several years. Claiming the incarcerated or detained during wartime as neither POWs or giving those individuals a civilian status pretty much has closed the argument regarding war crimes since the revelations of torture were clearly dictated from the top and implemented.
There is no justice in this and the sound of the rule of law versus dictatorships....is hollow coming from the United States which has had its first INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMINALS Administration. The Obama executive order is NIL in the face of a united International community...NOT THE UN...but the EU and NATO nations that clearly recognized the violations of the Geneva Conventions...these are our allies..and this is
not a dictatorship where President Obama can just say...NO. There must be accountability even for the treatment of heinous criminals...and casts a shadow over the CIA and military interrogations which went BADLY...I.E. DEATH in Afghanistan during the months that followed the Afghanistan invasion......
There are no UN commissions to prosecute war criminals. This is strictly a legal issue between the US and most of the EU....Dick Cheney, Albert Gonzalez, and George W. Bush along with other members of that administration that have clear authority in those areas with the military and the CIA....for the renditions and torture...are accountable and can be apprehended and secreted away for trial at the Hague even if the US is unwilling.
Just watch.....even with a reluctant signator to the Geneva Conventions....which the Obama Administration is now claiming to be exempt....I am sure the capable EU and NATO nations can manage to snatch a few war criminal suspects.... - Reply to this comment
- Yea like John McCain
Posted by vistavermin1 at 5:54 AM : Apr 19, 2009
Post of the day, best joke ever. - Reply to this comment
- socialist dictator Obama.
Posted by enjoylife63 at 6:17 AM : Apr 19, 2009
Obama, unlike Bush, has been elected. - Reply to this comment
- " We never hear about how those other countries tortured people.
Posted by wtlibs at 11:00 PM : Apr 19, 2009 "
Actually, we did. It was called "Nuremberg trial". - Reply to this comment
- "Making someone stand in a cold room and slapping them to keep them awake to save someone's family is not torture. If you walk out of the room physically healthy, you weren't tortured. You are a whiny puss* who can't stand that those Americans made you fess up with nothing more than a mid game your fake religion ccouldn't overcome.
Posted by dw8928 at 10:01 AM : Apr 19, 2009 "
You left out waterboarding ... 6 times a day. How efficient it must have been. - Reply to this comment
- Until the Bush bunch are QUICKLY charged & tried ....who can believe in the crooked system?
- Reply to this comment
- People should know that if the punish Bush that each new administration will find some crime that the President before them did. This could start something that will hurt fo decades. Better to let it go. Right or wrong, Bush thought he was doing right as Obama thinks he is doing right. People can always dig up something on you. Already people are turning against Obama and feel he is breaking several laws. Do you liberals want the next President to put Obama on trial. Palin may do it.
Posted by hungryman9
Although your entire post is seriously flawed, your reference to the possibility of Sarah Palin getting elected to ANYTHING outside of the welfare state of Alaska is hilarious!
ROFLMAO!! - Reply to this comment
