US Global Partners Should Come Clean on CIA Torture Cooperation: Amnesty

NEW YORK, December 10 (Sputnik) – All countries, who cooperated with a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture program, must investigate their role in a global network of human rights violations, Amnesty International has said.

"The USA and all the countries that worked with it to transfer, detain and torture suspects, have an international legal obligation to ensure full accountability for crimes under international law, including torture and enforced disappearances," Julia Hall, Amnesty International's counter-terrorism expert, was quoted as saying on the group's website Tuesday.

She added that these countries should facilitate access to justice for those, subjected to them and disclose the truth, concerning the violation of human rights, surrounding CIA operations.

According to Amnesty International, Italy, Lithuania, Romania, Sweden, Britain and Poland, which hosted a secret US prison at Stare Kiejkuty from 2002 to 2005, are among the countries that have cooperated with the CIA. The European Parliament has called on all implicated EU nations to investigate the extent of their cooperation with the CIA.

On Tuesday, the US Senate Intelligence Committee released a 500-page summary of a detailed probe into CIA interrogation techniques used on alleged al-Qaeda agents in light of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Security was boosted this week at US facilities around the globe ahead of the release of the controversial report, amid fears that new evidence of waterboarding and other forms of torture could incite revenge attacks against the United States.

It has reignited a debate in Washington over what constitutes torture, and whether those working in the administration of former President George W. Bush were defending the United States from further attacks or trampling on international law.