Grassroots News

Torture Taxis and the Rendition Program

News on the Program—Despite the Bush administration's assertion that it transferred the sum total of men, 14, who were in the rendition program to Guantánamo, many more men remain unaccounted for. Ghost Prisoner is a Human Rights Watch report of what happened to Marwan Jabour and lists others who have been captured and whose whereabouts are still unknown.

The Italian government has indicted 25 CIA agents and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force in the kidnapping of an imam, Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr. German prosecutors have issued warrants for 13 CIA agents whom they suspect of kidnapping Khaled el-Masri. (See the 2/17 Washington Post article.)

What You Can Do: Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) plans to reintroduce his Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act (H.R. 952 when it was introduced in the 109th Congress), which would prohibit the United States from transferring people to countries where torture or other inhuman treatment is known to occur for purposes of interrogation or detention. Markey is currently seeking co-sponsors.

Grassroots activists are actively involved in shutting the program down:

Mystery Uncovered in Portland, Oregon—Unraveling the mystery of the Gulfstream V, which has ferried hooded and shackled passengers to various prisons all over Europe, is retired Rutgers professor Michael Munk. He has been ramping up the pressure on Portland attorney Scott Caplan, who appears to be the Northwest link to the CIA and its torture taxis. Caplan’s phantom client, Leonard Bayard, is listed as owner of the Gulfstream V. Recently, Munk convinced the Oregon State Bar to start an investigation into whether attorney Scott Caplan has represented Bayard Foreign Marketing, under false pretenses.

Munk recently found two documents allegedly signed by Bayard, with wildly differing slants and contours in the signatures: another clue that the company is actually a CIA front. You can see the signatures in this report from KATU-television, or look at the BORDC website: http://bordc.org/threats/flights.php.

Work Continues in North Carolina—On February 22, the North Carolina Stop Torture Coalition held a Vigil at US 1 and NC 56 highways when President Bush was taking a flight a helicopter from RDU to Novozymes. The vigil and street theater activities were covered by News 14 Charlotte. (Click on "Bush protestors" to view the video.) Read the transcript of a powerful interview with coalition member Christina Cowger.