A/HRC/13/42*
page 62
while countering terrorism to the Governments of the United States, Indonesia, Yemen
and Jordan on the cases of Bashmilah and Salim Ali, who were both detained and
tortured in Jordan.234 Only the latter country responded, declaring that no record
showing that the two men had been arrested for the violations of either the penal,
disciplinary or administrative codes, and that they did not have documented files
indicating that they posed a security concern, eliminating the possibility of their arrest
for what may be described as terrorism.235 The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
adopted its opinion No. 47/2005 (Yemen) on the case on 30 November 2005, declaring
their detention to be arbitrary as being devoid of any legal basis. In its reply to the
allegations, the Government of Yemen confirmed that Mr. Bashmilah and Mr. Salim Ali
had been handed over to Yemen by the United States. According to the Government,
they had been held in a security police facility because of their alleged involvement in
terrorist activities related to Al-Qaida. The Government added that the competent
authorities were still dealing with the case pending receipt of the persons’ files from the
United States authorities in order to transfer them to the Prosecutor.236
• Khaled el-Masri, a German seized on the border of the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia on 31 December 2003, was held in a hotel room by agents of that State for
23 days, then rendered by the CIA to the “salt pit”. He was released in Albania on 29
May 2004.237
• Khaled al-Maqtari, a Yemeni seized in Iraq in January 2004, was initially held in Abu
Ghraib, then transferred to a secret CIA detention facility in Afghanistan. In April 2004,
he was moved to a second secret detention facility, possibly in Eastern Europe, where
he remained in complete isolation for 28 months, until he was returned to Yemen and
released in May 2007.238
234
E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.1, paras, 93, 126, 525 and 550.
235
A/HRC/4/33/Add.1, para. 123.
236
A/HRC/4/40/Add.1, para. 15.
237
Interview with the lawyer of Khaled El-Masri (case 9, annex II). See also the statement of
Khaled el-Masri, ACLU, available from
www.aclu.org/safefree/extraordinaryrendition/22201res20051206.html.
238
Amnesty International, “United States of America: a case to answer. From Abu Ghraib to
secret CIA custody: the case of Khaled al-Maqtari”, 14 March 2008. Available from
www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/013/2008/en.
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