UN investigator calls for prosecution of US officials

A United Nations human rights expert said a report that the US Senate released on Tuesday revealed a "clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration" and called for prosecution of US officials who ordered systematic crimes against detainees.

Ben Emmerson, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, said that senior Bush administration officials who planned and authorised crimes must be prosecuted, as well as CIA and other US government officials who committed torture such as waterboarding.

“As a matter of international law, the US is legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice,” Mr Emmerson said in a statement issued in Geneva. “The US Attorney General is under a legal duty to bring criminal charges against those responsible.”

The CIA routinely misled the White House and Congress over its harsh interrogation program for terrorism suspects, and its methods, which included waterboarding, were more brutal than the agency acknowledged, a Senate report said on Tuesday.

Emmerson, a British international lawyer serving in the independent post since 2010, welcomed the belated release of the report, commending the Obama administration “for resisting domestic pressure to suppress these important findings”.

“It is now time to take action. The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today’s report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes,” he said.

International law prohibits granting immunity to public officials who have engaged in acts of torture, he said.

“The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorized at a high level within the US government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability,” Emmerson said.

Torture is an international crime and perpetrators may be prosecuted by any other country to which they might travel, he added.

The UN Human Rights Committee, which reviewed the US record in upholding civil and political rights in March, called for the release of the report then.

Critics, including independent experts on that UN rights panel, say the CIA program set up after the 2001 attacks on the United States included harsh interrogation methods that constituted torture banned by international law.

Reuters