Wednesday, April 17, 2013

European Court Blocks Extradition

The European Court of Human Rights ruled against the extradition of terror suspect Haroon Aswat from the UK to the United States on Tuesday. He is a former aide to radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri. Classified a not merely a crank, but insane, Haroon is being held at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital since his 2005 arrest in Britain. He is charged with conspiring to establish a jihadist training camp in Bly, Oregon at the direction of al-Masri. The court concluded his transfer to the supermax dungeon in Florence, Colorado would further degrade his schizophrenic condition and constitute degrading treatment under Article Three of the European Convention on Human Rights(1950). Other prisoners not suffering a mental conditions have been successfully extradited. Nor did the European Court find that high security US prisons, referred to as supermax prisons where prisoners are locked in their cells for up to 23 hours a day, violate the Convention.

US Person notes the Constitution Project, a bi-partisan legal advocacy group has concluded after a two year study the United States has engaged in torture as defined previously in this country's jurisprudence and by the United Nations in the Convention Against Torture, ratified by the United States. The practice of torture was acquiesced at the highest levels of the United States government. This conclusion is based on a number of decision taken by the Charlatan and continued in some respects by the Current Occupant. The Charlatan issued an order in 2002 declaring the Geneva Conventions inapplicable to Al Qaeda. His administration further established numerous detention facilities (so-called "black sites") including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, undertook extra-legal renditions of captives, and authorized what the administration obliquely called "enhanced interrogation techniques". These decisions, and lack of clarifying orders regarding treatment of detainees, resulted in the use and spread of torture. Under the current administration, the force feeding and treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has returned to public scrutiny. A hunger strike has been carried out by prisoners there since February. Assassinations of jihadists using flying robots has also been criticized by human rights organizations. Somehow this is not really news, is it?