Ex-UN envoy: U.S. feared discovery of prison abuse

By Deborah Horan
Tribune staff reporter

Cherif Bassiouni, the DePaul University law professor who last week lost his post as UN human-rights investigator in Afghanistan, said Thursday he believed the U.S. pushed him out to hide abuses in American-run prisons in the country and the possible transfer there of as many as 200 prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"They have two groups of people they want to hide--the people in Afghan prisons and the people they transfer from Guantanamo," Bassiouni said in an interview. "The bigger exposure is the transfer of about 200 people from Guantanamo."

Bassiouni said he had heard reports the U.S. plans to transfer prisoners to Afghanistan from Guantanamo before opening the prison in Cuba to international inspectors.

He called the move part of a "well-known game" that governments around the world use to ease prison conditions and hide torture victims before allowing human-rights inspectors into facilities.

"The U.S. can say, `Oh, we released them,'" Bassiouni said. "Where? They'll probably fudge on the answers."

Bassiouni, who took up his post in April 2004, was informed last Friday via e-mail that his two-year mandate would not be renewed. The e-mail came the same day that he submitted a 24-page report that criticized the United States and other countries for not allowing him and other inspectors into coalition forces' facilities. (...)


Chicago Tribune, 29-04-2005

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