US held Yemeni in secret jails for years

London: The running of secret CIA prisons for terrorism suspects makes a mockery of international law, Amnesty International said yesterday in a case study of a Yemeni man who was held incommunicado for more than 2-1/2 years.

The human rights group said Khalid Al Maqtari's case shed new light on "the cruelty and illegality of the CIA programme of secret detentions and forced disappearances."

It said he suffered multiple forms of torture and ill-treatment during an odyssey which began with his capture in Iraq in 2004 and led him, via Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, to secret US jails in Afghanistan and another unknown location, possibly in eastern Europe.

Suspects

Under fire over the treatment of terrorism suspects, President George W. Bush signed an executive order in July 2007 requiring the Central Intelligence Agency to comply with prohibitions against "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" as set down in the Geneva conventions against torture.

But human rights groups have condemned Bush for refusing to specify which interrogation practices are and are not allowed.

Last Saturday he vetoed legislation passed by Congress that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning.