Dominik Cziesche writes a very informative and eye brow raising article about the typical conflict between civil rights and security.
Zammar was abducted by CIA officers during a trip to Morocco at the end of 2001 and taken to Syria, a country that practices torture. That made Syrian-born Zammar, who had acquired German citizenship in 1982, one of the first victims of "rendition," a U.S. practice that rides roughshod over fundamental legal principles. He is now incarcerated in a 6x3 foot cell, a gaunt shadow of his former 300-pound self.
One note, "rendition" did not start in 2001. It was fully utilized by the Clinton administration (not a dig because I think it was right then and now) when they had the CIA nab jihadists fighting in Bosnia and Kosovo and returned them to Egypt where they were often tortured.
Increasingly concerned about the presence of Islamist militants from Arab countries taking up arms in the former Yugoslavia, the U.S. government took action. In 1995, the U.S. orchestrated the capture of Gama`a leader Tal`at Fu’ad Qassim, also known as Abu Talal al-Qasimi. At the time of his abduction, Qassim was living in exile in Denmark, where he had been granted political asylum. Qassim was thirty-eight at the time of his abduction in Croatia in September 1995; he had been traveling to Bosnia to write about the conflict there. The Croatian foreign ministry told his wife, Amani Faruq, that Qassim had been expelled for violating Croatian residency laws.62
Richard Clarke has written that the decision by the U.S. government to take Tal`at Fu’ad Qassim into custody in 1995 was stirred by a recognition within the Clinton administration of the seriousness of the threat posed by international terrorism. Clarke refers to Qassim’s capture as a “disappearance.”63 Clarke also states that, unbeknownst to the U.S. government at the time, Qassim and other foreign Muslims fighting in Bosnia were part of al-Qaeda.64
Before his forced transfer to Egypt, Qassim was allegedly questioned aboard a U.S. navy vessel and the handover to Egypt took place in the middle of the Adriatic Sea.65 Qassim’s case is the first known rendition by the U.S. government to a third country with a record of torture.
The Qassim case marked a first of sorts for the Egyptian government as well. Its handling of the Qassim case – complete disappearance, refusing to allow any access to the individual, either by his family or his lawyers – would be repeated many times in the years to come. After his return, the Egyptian government refused to answer questions about his whereabouts, and denied his attorney, Muntassir al-Zayyat, access to him:
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