Proyectos Desaparecidos - Notas

Bush White House Sought to Shield Those Running Secret CIA Prisons

A Bush administration official said the existence of the Guantanamo Bay prison affected U.S. thinking on the treaty. (By Brennan Linsley -- Associated Press)

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 8, 2009

From 2003 to 2006, the Bush administration quietly tried to relax the draft language of a treaty meant to bar and punish "enforced disappearances" so that those overseeing the CIA's secret prison system would not be criminally prosecuted under its provisions, according to former officials and hundreds of pages of documents recently declassified by the State Department.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces on Monday heard arguments in the appeal of Army Spc. Charles Graner, sentenced to 10 years in prison for abuses committed at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Graner, the alleged ringleader of the Abu Ghraib abuse, was convictedin 2005 of conspiracy, assault, maltreating prisoners, dereliction of duty, and committing indecent acts. Graner's lawyer argued Monday that the defense was denied access to classified documents that may have shown some of the detainee treatment was actually part of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" approved by then-Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The government's lawyer argued that the defense had access to the documents before the trial. A ruling is expected by August.