The Bush administration has decided that some non-Iraqi prisoners captured by US forces in Iraq are not entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention, according to reports in the United States.
The New York Timestoday reports unnamed administration officials saying an opinion was reached in recent months that there are exceptions to previous US assertions that the conventions apply to all prisoners taken in the Iraq war.
Sunday's Washington Postsaid US intelligence officials were transferring detainees out of Iraq for interrogation. In those cases, the CIA had invoked a confidential Justice Department memo to justify its actions, the newspaper said.
In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is guaranteed access to prisoners of war under the conventions, said it could not confirm or deny the reports that prisoners had been moved.
ICRC spokeswoman Ms Antonella Notari said that regardless of whether the conventions applied, all prisoners must be covered by some law, be it international, Iraqi or American.
"Some law has to apply. The important thing is not to detain people outside of any legal framework. That is what we have always said about Guantanamo," she said in reference to the US naval base in Cuban where 550 alleged Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are being held.
In June, the US Supreme Court ruled the Guantanamo detainees had the right to appeal to US courts against their detention.
Today's Timesreport said that the legal opinion would allow the military and the CIA to treat at least a small number of non-Iraqi prisoners captured in Iraq in the same way as members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan or elsewhere.