Recommendations

The US government should:

Repudiate the use of secret detention and coercive interrogation as tactics in fighting terrorism, and announce that the CIA’s detention and interrogation program is being permanently discontinued;

Disclose the location and current status of the detention facilities where Marwan Jabour was held, as well as the location and current status of all other secret detention facilities used by the CIA since 2001;

Disclose the identities, fate, and current whereabouts of all prisoners held for any period of time at facilities operated or controlled by the CIA since 2001, and, for prisoners transferred to the custody of another government, disclose the date and location of the transfer;

Order the release of any prisoner held in another country’s prisons at the behest of the United States, or, if evidence exists of a prisoner’s involvement in criminal offenses, transfer the prisoner to the United States for prosecution in US courts in accordance with internationally recognized fair trial standards;

Hold terrorist suspects only in officially recognized places of detention where they are registered and have access to family members, lawyers, and courts; treat them in accordance with international standards on the treatment of prisoners, and either charge them promptly or release them;

Acknowledge publicly that US domestic law (including the Detainee Treatment Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the Hamdan decision) bars the use of abusive interrogation techiques such as “waterboarding,” extended sleep deprivation, and forced exposure to extremes of heat and cold;

Sign and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance;

Ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which establishes a system of regular visits undertaken by independent international and national bodies to places where people are deprived of their liberty, in order to prevent torture and other mistreatment.

The US Congress should:

Hold hearings to investigate the CIA’s secret detention program, with the goal of ascertaining the scope of the program, the manner in which detainees were treated (including the interrogation methods employed on them), and the fate and current whereabouts of every person ever held in the program;

Compel the White House to provide the House and Senate intelligence committees with the September 17, 2001 presidential finding that authorized the CIA to initiate its program of secret detention and interrogation;

Repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006 or, at a minimum, amend it to:

ensure that all detainees in US custody, whether held on US territory or abroad, are guaranteed the right to habeas corpus;

reform the law’s protections on classified “methods and activities” so that these provisions cannot be used to protect the CIA’s coercive interrogation methods against disclosure;

bar the use of statements obtained as result of coercion from military commission trials.

Pass legislation to ensure that all secret detention centers are shut down permanently and that no one is forcibly disappeared into US custody or otherwise held incommunicado;

Pass legislation to prohibit the return or transfer of persons to countries where they are at risk of torture or other abusive treatment, and to bar the government from relying on “diplomatic assurances” to justify such transfers;

Press the Department of Justice to vigorously prosecute civilians—including those at high levels of authority—who are responsible for engaging in, authorizing or condoning the mistreatment of detainees.

The government of Pakistan should:

Close any secret detention facilities that may be operating in Pakistan, register all prisoners in Pakistani custody (including those in the custody of the intelligence services), and ensure that all prisoners are brought before a judge within a short time of their arrest;

Transfer prisoners to the US authorities in accordance with Pakistani law and only after obtaining written assurances that the prisoners will be brought before US courts, promptly charged or released, and will not be placed in indefinite detention at Guantanamo or elsewhere;

Initiate a parliamentary investigation of the government’s role in supporting and assisting CIA abuses in Pakistan.

The Italian, German, Spanish, and Portuguese judicial authorities should:

Continue their investigations of CIA activities in their countries, focusing not only on the actions of low-level operatives, but also on the responsibility of higher-level officials who formulated detention, interrogation, and rendition policies and signed off on operations.

All governments should:

Refuse to assist or cooperate in any way with CIA detention, interrogation, and rendition operations that violate international human rights norms;

Disclose any information that they may have about CIA detention, interrogation, and rendition operations.

February 2007

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