Security and intelligence - new material (18)
01 July 2011
How US firms turned CIA torture flights into profits, Ian Cobain and Ben Quinn. The Guardian 1.9.11. Illuminating insight into the scale of the CIA’s rendition programme, revealed after legal squabbles between the private companies that profited from the business opportunities provided by the US rendition programme. The court case in New York involves aircraft broker, Sportsflight, and operator Richmore. While victims of the US war on terror continue to languish in Guantanamo Bay without proper recourse to the law, the private companies that escorted them to black sites across the world to face the most horrendous physical and psychological abuse (and even extra-judicial execution) are suing one another over exactly how much money they are entitled to. As a result, many of the US companies involved in this human traffic have been exposed and, hopefully, can be brought to trial on behalf of their victims. Reprieve’s Legal director, Cori Crider, said: “These documents reveal how the CIA’s secret network of torture sites was able to operate unchecked for so many years. They also reveal what a farce it was that the CIA managed to get the prisoners’ torture claims kicked out as secret, while all of the details of its sinister business were hiding in plain sight.” Reprieve, which uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, can be contacted at: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/
Could double killing have been averted? Ex-spy shines light on Ulster’s covert war, Henry McDonald. The Guardian 12.9.11, p. 15. The spy in question is Ian Hurst, a former member of the notorious FRU (Force Research Unit), and the double killing is that of two top RUC police officers, Superintendent Bob Buchanan and Chief Superintendent Harry Breen, in March 1989. Hurst has handed his material to Ireland’s Smithwick Tribunal, which is investigating collusion between paramilitaries and the security forces during the 1980s. Hurst’s version of events suggests that the IRA had planned to abduct and interrogate the police officers and that state agents (infiltrators) “killed the two police officers in order to prevent them from being handed over to a Provisional interrogation unit.” The Smithwick Tribunal website: http://www.smithwicktribunal.ie/smithwick/HOMEPAGE.html