- WASHINGTON (AFP) - The CIA
has secretly transferred detainees out of Iraq for interrogation after
asking the US Justice Department to write a memo justifying the practice,
which violates the Geneva Conventions, The Washington Post reported.
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- The CIA used the draft memo as legal support for the
transfer up to a dozen detainees in the last six months, concealing the
move from the International Committee of the Red Cross and other authorities,
the Post said, citing an intelligence official familiar with the operation.
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- The daily said it had obtained a copy of the confidential
memo, written by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, dated
March 19, 2004 and stamped "draft."
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- The memo covers both Iraqi citizens and foreigners in
Iraq, according to the Post.
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- It permits the CIA to take Iraqis out of the country
to be interrogated for a "brief but not indefinite period," and
allows permanent removal of persons deemed to be "illegal aliens"
under "local immigration law," the daily said.
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- Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention protects civilians
during wartime and occupation, prohibiting "individual or mass forcible
transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory...
regardless of their motive."
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- In a footnote to the memo its author wrote that a violation
of this provision constitutes a "grave breach" of the accord
and a "war crime" under US federal law, the Post said.
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- "For these reasons, we recommend that any contemplated
relocations of 'protected persons' from Iraq to facilitate interrogation
be carefully evaluated for compliance with Article 49 on a case by case
basis," the footnote says.
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- In a controversial move, the administration transferred
many Al-Qaeda fighters captured in Afghanistan to a US naval base in Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, saying these "enemy combatants" were not protected
under the Geneva Conventions.
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- But the US government had said that former members of
Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and military, insurgents and other civilians
in Iraq, were to be protected by the Geneva Conventions, the Post pointed
out.
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- The CIA has not disclosed the identities or locations
of prisoners captured in Iraq, the Post said.
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- "The Geneva Conventions are applicable to the conflict
in Iraq, and our policy is to comply with the Geneva Conventions,"
White House spokesman Sean McCormick told the Post when asked about the
memo.
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