WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — A report in the Associated Press said detainees are being tortured at 18 secret prisons in Yemen run by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or by UAE-trained Yemeni officials.
According to the report, US personnel take part in interrogations at the prisons in Yemen and may have therefore been complicit in the torture of detainees.
"We are urging lawmakers to exercise their oversight role to get answers from the US administration about how such an interrogation policy could be authorized and are pressing with our public and private advocacy for answers," Pitter said.
If US forces interrogated detainees who are abused, they could risk complicity in torture, which is a violation of international law.
"The US did confirm a lot in the AP story already. We have a lot of concerns about what they have already admitted to," Pitter said.
According to the report, extreme incidents of torture took place at the 18 clandestine prisons, including one practice called the "grill," which involved spinning prisoners on a pole over a fire.
US State Department spokesperson Rankine-Galloway told Sputnik on Thursday that the Defense Department had not received any credible evidence that its forces were involved in any abuses in Yemen.
