A case filed before an African judicial body could open a new front in efforts by human rights groups to hold the CIA and its partners accountable for what they allege was the torture of innocent victims in secret "black site" prisons around the world.
The case involves Mohammed al-Asad, who said he was arrested in late 2003 at his home in Tanzania, blindfolded and flown to a secret prison in Djibouti. He said he was subjected to two weeks of torture and inhuman treatment in a clandestine CIA rendition and detentions program designed to nab suspected terrorists.
From Djibouti, human rights activists say, Asad was dispatched into a network of secret CIA prisons in Afghanistan and Eastern Europe, before being jailed in his native Yemen. In 2006, Asad was released, without being charged with a terrorism-related crime.
On Monday, American and British human rights lawyers filed legal documents at the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, urging it to require the government of Djibouti to "answer for abuses it committed'' as part of the CIA's secret program. The case made public Monday was filed confidentially in December 2009.
An Israeli reservist has said that army officers treat Gaza’s entire population of two million Palestinians...
An eight-year-old Palestinian girl, whose age was confirmed by al-Shifa hospital, was killed alongside her father...
A documentary examining the Israeli military systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza...
Palestinians on Sunday held a mass funeral for 100 people, including 62 children, whose remains were...
