Of Note: Extraordinary Rendition and Transatlantic Intelligence Cooperation

The need for an international strategy in the fight against terrorism ensures that strengthening transatlantic intelligence cooperation will remain a top priority for U.S. intelligence agencies in the years following 9/11. Yet, the very policies being adopted and expanded in this 'war against terror' are beginning to pose serious challenges to the intelligence links and diplomatic ties between the U.S. and its allies. As details about the various U.S. clandestine activities being perpetrated on foreign soil become more widely available, public opinion in the world, and particularly in Europe, is swinging towards one of growing resentment at U.S. policies. "Extraordinary rendition," an example of one such controversial U.S. intelligence program, has raised serious questions about the violation of human rights and disregard for the rule of law.

Extraordinary rendition is the practice of abducting and transferring terrorism suspects from one foreign state to another for interrogation, detention or arrest. Effectively an extralegal system which denies suspects fundamental legal safeguards, including the opportunity to challenge their transfers, extraordinary rendition has come to be seen as synonymous with the outsourcing of torture.¹ By transferring terrorism suspects to those countries which do not have functioning legal systems or where extreme interrogation methods and torture are permitted, critics argue that rendition's purpose is to enable the use of those interrogation procedures not permitted under U.S. laws. Although the program was implemented in 1995 under President Clinton, both its nature and scope have expanded significantly since the events of 9/11.²

A Council of Europe report released in the summer of 2007 implicated numerous European countries as being complicit in the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. The report asserted the global reach of this policy by claiming that "while the strategy was devised and put in place by the current United States administration to deal with the threat of global terrorism, it has only been made possible by the collaboration at various institutional levels of American's many partner countries."³ Dicky Marty, the author of the report, named 14 European countries as having either allowed the CIA use of their airspace to enable renditions or permitted the CIA to run secret prisons in their territories.⁴ The CIA ran secret prisons in Poland and Romania between 2002 and 2005, where suspects could be interrogated free of legal restraints, while other states, including Britain, Italy and Germany, were accused of providing the CIA use of their airspace.⁵

It is not apparent if information about these clandestine activities was restricted only to intelligence authorities in the implicated European countries, but as details of these renditions become known to increasingly frustrated publics seeking accountability from their governments, European political leaders must provide answers.⁶

Two cases illustrate this deepening tension. In late 2003, Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent was captured in Macedonia and taken to Afghanistan, where he was interrogated and tortured in a secret CIA-run detention and interrogation facility known as the "Salt Pit."⁷ El-Masri was released four months later, with no explanation provided to him for his detention. The case brought forward by el-Masri in U.S. courts was dismissed on the grounds of the state secrets privilege, which permits the government to block the release of information in a lawsuit that could be detrimental to national security.⁸ Critics argue that the government is overusing this privilege to evade responsibility and accountability for its actions. Despite this dismissal in U.S. courts, the German Parliament began investigations locally to determine the precise role of German intelligence in the affair. On 25 June 2007, public prosecutors in Munich asked for the extradition of 13 US citizens, 10 of whom were thought to be CIA agents involved in the Khaled el-Masri case.⁹ While German authorities decided against pursuing the extradition request, the symbolic significance of such an arrest warrant and the resulting media attention remains noteworthy.¹⁰ As the German newspaper Spiegel reported at the time, this "diplomatic offensive" angered Washington, and prompted American diplomats in Germany to meet with German government...