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Russian armed forces and associated groups systematically use torture in occupied areas of Ukraine, pointing to a "deliberate policy", a United Nations expert said on Friday. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, said she had drawn that conclusion following a visit to war-torn Ukraine in September. "The volume of credible allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or humiliating treatment or punishment (indicate that) torture is an element of Russia's war policy," she told the UN Human Rights Council. "These grievous crimes appear to be neither random nor incidental." Speaking to reporters, Edwards said Ukrainian...

At the International Platform for the Release of Civilians Illegally Detained by the Russian Federation, Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin said that 204 people have been served with suspicion notices in Ukrainian criminal proceedings regarding the illegal deprivation of liberty of civilians, 158 people are being tried in courts, and 33 people have been convicted. Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin took part in the launch of the International Platform for the Release of Civilians Illegally Detained by the Russian Federation. This is an important step in the implementation of the Fourth Point of the President's Peace Formula. It aims to unite efforts...

Amnesty International is calling on senators to to halt the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh over his "possible involvement" in human rights violations after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The human rights organization wrote in a Monday letter that Kavanaugh might have been involved "in issues related to torture and rendition after 9/11." "More information must be made public to determine Kavanaugh’s role in relation to such practices," the organization wrote.

Malaysia has arrested a man on charges of hacking into the personal information of more than a thousand U.S. security officials and handing the database to the Islamic State militant group in Syria so it could target the individuals. The 20-year-old from Kosovo, who entered Malaysia in August 2014 to study computer science and forensics at a private institute in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, will be extradited to the United States, police said in a statement on Thursday night. "Early investigation found the suspect communicated with one of the right hand man (leader) of IS terrorist group in Syria to...

Turkey vowed to root out allies of the U.S.-based cleric it blames for an abortive coup last week, widening a purge of the army, police and judiciary on Tuesday to universities and schools, the intelligence agency and religious authorities. Around 50,000 soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have been suspended or detained since the coup attempt, stirring tensions across the country of 80 million which borders Syria's chaos and is a Western ally against Islamic State. "This parallel terrorist organisation will no longer be an effective pawn for any country," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said, referring to what the...

A former CIA counterterrorism officer who is set to be extradited to Italy where she faces a four-year prison sentence in connection with the rendition of a suspected terrorist that took place in Milan in 2003 said Hillary Clinton is partially to blame for her ordeal. Sabrina De Sousa, two-dozen other CIA officers, and an Air Force colonel were convicted in absentia in 2009 in Italy on kidnapping and other charges in connection with the abduction of Osama Mustapha Hassan Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, a radical Egyptian cleric whose fiery anti-American speeches in the immediate aftermath of 9/11...

Baghdad, 23 May (AKI) - The number two of the al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to take part in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress, former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi has revealed to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. In an interview, Allawi made public information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in the archives of the Saddam Hussein regime, which sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and the Islamic terrorist network. He also said that both al-Zawahiri and Jordanian militant al-Zarqawi probably entered Iraq in the same period. "Al-Zawahiri was summoned by Izza...

This doesn't quite qualify as breaking news for those who tracked the extraordinary labyrinth of intelligence that emerged in the days following the 2011 Abbottabad raid, but the subject of US interrogation policy is again generating controversy in advance of the release of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' a film that dramatizes the bin Laden mission.  Writing in today's Washington Post, a former top CIA counter-terrorism officer sets the record straight on what measures were, and were not, employed to help bring down the world's most infamous terrorist.  Jose Rodriguez -- who made headlines last year when his book exposed Nancy Pelosi's...

How accurate and realistic is the portrayal of CIA interrogation in the film? The movie, after all, opens with a statement saying “based on firsthand accounts of actual events"; then goes on to show the fictionalized brutal abuse and torture of a fictional high value terrorist, including waterboarding. Well, one "firsthand account" not utilized as an expert consultant to the movie is Jose Rodriguez, former head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, author of Hard Measures, and unapologetic defender of the CIA's "torture" program.... When I reviewed Zero Dark Thirty, the focus of my review was on whether or not political...

Khaled El-Masri, the Lebanese-born German national who claims the CIA abducted him in Macedonia in 2003 before subjecting him to unlawful imprisonment and torture, has become accustomed to his case being thrown out of court. But on Thursday, he was finally able to claim a victory. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in El-Masri’s favor and ordered that the government of Macedonia to pay him €60,000 ($78,456) in damages. Based in Strasbourg, the court found that his account of having been flown secretly to Afghanistan, brutally interrogated there at a prison run by the US intelligence agency and then...

A friend tells me he was watching part of an episode of 'Law and Order' last evening. Does not remember which one of the many L&E shows. I no longer watch conventional television, so I need help finding this. The plot involves two detectives stubling upon prisoners held secretly in a state prison. Detectives found out because of the differance between official head count and number of meals served. My friend says the great quote from the show; "Ever read the Patriot Act ?" "I read the original-1984." Help me find this episode.

The Supreme Court refused Monday to review a ruling that blocked a lawsuit alleging a Boeing Co. subsidiary helped the Central Intelligence Agency seize terrorism suspects abroad and secretly transfer them to other countries for interrogation. The high court rejected an appeal by five men who claimed that U.S. operatives—with support from Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing unit—abducted them and sent them to other countries where they were tortured. They alleged Jeppesen provided critical flight planning and logistical support to the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program. The men were seeking unspecified monetary damages from the company.

The, ahem, "man-caused death" of the world's most infamous terrorist is marvelous news for our country.  It is a testament to the skill and dedication of our men and women in uniform, and to the tireless work of our intelligence agencies.  It completes the hard and sometimes frustrating efforts of two successive presidential administrations.  That justice has been visited upon bin Laden is an unmitigated, non-partisan good.  But as the media pieces together the puzzle of how yesterday's surgical mission came to be, a politically controversial fact has arisen -- the investigation into locating and neutralizing bin Laden gained early...

WikiLeaks: Osama bin Laden Killed After Tip-Off From His Deputy The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, who was interrogated using “torture” techniques, gave the United States the breakthrough that resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden. 02 May 2011 Follow Tim Ross on Twitter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who was repeatedly subjected to methods including “waterboarding” and stress positions, provided the CIA with the name of bin Laden’s personal courier, according to US officials. A second source – also an al-Qaeda “leader” held at Guantanamo Bay – then confirmed the courier’s identity, sparking an intense manhunt that resulted in...

An appellate court in Milan upheld on Wednesday the conviction of 23 Americans charged with kidnapping an Egyptian cleric in 2003 and ordered even harsher sentences. All but one of the Americans are Central Intelligence Agency operatives.

Former Guantanamo Bay inmate Binyam Mohamed has been barred by United States judges from suing over his alleged torture. They ruled that his claims against the CIA cannot be aired in an American court because it could compromise national security. Critics blasted the decision as shutting out torture victims from justice, while providing 'complete immunity to their torturers'. They were fighting for the right to sue airline company Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing subsidiary accused of arranging the CIA's torture flights. Despite initially being allowed to go ahead with the case, last year, the Obama administration appealed and now the US...

EXCLUSIVE: CIA Secret 'Torture' Prison Found at Fancy Horseback Riding Academy ABC News Finds the Location of a "Black Site" for Alleged Terrorists in Lithuania By BRIAN ROSS and MATTHEW COLE Nov. 18, 2009 — The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week. Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at a café, the CIA installed a concrete structure where it could use harsh tactics to interrogate up to eight suspected al-Qaeda...

ABC News' Rachel Martin reports: The US intelligence gathering program known as “extraordinary rendition” was essentially put on trial for the first time - in Italy - and this week the court rendered a guilty verdict. Italian Judge Oscar Magi convicted 23 Americans of the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric on a street in Milan, Italy. The cleric, known as Abu Omar, alleged that he was abducted by CIA operatives who then shuttled him between US bases in Europe and then moved him to Egypt where Omar says he was tortured. The Italian judge tried the Americans, all but...

MILAN -- An Italian court on Wednesday convicted 22 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force colonel of orchestrating the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003 and flying him to Egypt, where he said he was later tortured.

MILAN - An Italian judge says he has convicted 23 Americans of the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric from a Milan street in a CIA extraordinary rendition. Citing diplomatic immunity, Judge Oscar Magi told the Milan courtroom Wednesday that he was acquitting three other Americans. Twenty-two of the convicted Americans were immediately sentenced to five years in jail at the end of the nearly three-year trial. The other convicted American, Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady, was given the stiffest sentence, eight years in prison. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here All of the Americans were...