USLegal Reporter » International Law

CIA Tactics Considered Torture By Red Cross

Dana Altman — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:26:51 +0000

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) deemd CIA tactics used against terrorism suspects, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, prolonged nudity, and cold water immersion, as constituting torture. The information was contained in a confidential 2007 report originally intended for CIA general counsel John Rizzo, but is contained in an article published in the New York Review of Books earlier this month. The ICRC conclusions were made after interviews with fourteen so-called “high-valued” detainees.

The CIA recently admitted to the destruction of 92 tapes of interrogations of the “high-value” detainees, 12 of which included evidence of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” (EIT). President Barack Obama in January issued an executive order explicitly banning the use of waterboarding and other techniques that violate the Geneva Convention safeguards for prisoners of war.

Source: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2009/03/red-cross-deemed-cia-interrogation.php

Texas Execution of Mexican National Sparks Debate

carrie — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:32:15 +0000

The state of Texas on Tuesday executed death row inmate Jose Medellin raising concern over what happens to the rights of foreigners arrested and detained in the U.S.

Medellin, born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, was convicted of the 1993 killings of two teenage girls from Houston.

An international court previously ruled that Medellin’s conviction and that of 50 other Mexicans on death row in the US violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

This international law treaty, which the US has agreed to, calls for people arrested abroad to have access to their home country’s consular officials.

Texas state officials denied Medellin’s request.

President Bush had asked states to review the cases. Medellin’s appeal to the Supreme Court to allow states and Congress more time to look into the matter was denied by a 5-4 vote.

Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/us/06execute.html?ref=world,

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=8795562&nav=0s3d