Secret US jails hold 10,000
13.05.2004
By ANDREW BUNCOMBE and KIM SENGUPTA
WASHINGTON - Almost 10,000 prisoners from President George W. Bush's so-called war on terror are being held around the world in secretive American-run jails and interrogation centres similar to the notorious Abu Ghraib Prison.
Some of these detention centres are so sensitive that even the most senior members of the United States Congress have no idea where they are.
From Iraq to Afghanistan to Cuba, this American gulag is driven by the pressure to obtain "actionable" intelligence from prisoners captured by US forces.
The systematic practice of holding prisoners without access to lawyers or their families, together with a willingness to use "coercive interrogation" techniques, suggests the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib now shocking the world could be widespread.
more
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3566058&msg=emaillink