Recommendations

To the United States Government

• Consistent with obligations under the Convention against Torture, investigate credible allegations of torture and ill-treatment since September 11, 2001 and implement a system of compensation to ensure all victims can obtain redress.
• Acknowledge past abuses and provide a full accounting of every person that the CIA has held in its custody pursuant to its counterterrorism authority since 2001, including names, dates they left US custody, locations to which they were transferred, and their last known whereabouts.
• Ensure that any person subject to rendition abroad has the right, prior to transfer, to challenge its legality before an independent tribunal, including any diplomatic assurances made; to legal counsel; and to appeal a transfer before it is carried out.
• Prohibit reliance upon diplomatic assurances against torture and ill-treatment (and make public the procedures used to ensure compliance) if there is any credible evidence the person subject to transfer faces a risk of torture or other ill-treatment.
• Include in required periodic reports to the Committee against Torture, the Human Rights Committee, and other relevant international and regional monitoring bodies detailed information about all cases in which requests for diplomatic assurances against the risk of torture or other ill-treatment have been sought or secured in respect to a person subject to transfer.

To the President of the United States

• Direct the attorney general to begin a criminal investigation into US government detention practices and interrogation methods since September 11, 2001, including the CIA detention program. The investigation should examine the role of US officials, no matter their position or rank, who participated in, authorized, ordered, or had command responsibility for torture or ill-treatment and other unlawful detention practices, including enforced disappearance and rendition to torture or other ill-treatment.
• Make publicly available the August 2009 report of the Special Task Force on Interrogation and Transfers (an inter-agency task force set up by the Obama administration in January 2009). 

To the US Congress

• Create an independent, nonpartisan commission to investigate the mistreatment of detainees in US custody anywhere in the world since September 11, 2001, including torture, enforced disappearance, and rendition to torture. Such a commission should hold hearings, have full subpoena power, compel the production of evidence, and be empowered to recommend the creation of a special prosecutor to investigate possible criminal offenses, if the attorney general has not commenced such an investigation.

To the Government of the United Kingdom

• Set up a new, judge-led inquiry into the United Kingdom’s involvement in detainee abuse and renditions to torture with full independence from the government and authority to allow it to establish the truth, including a presumption in favor of publication of information and evidence, with final decisions on such publication to be made by the inquiry. This inquiry should be set up immediately, without any requirement to wait for criminal investigations or warranted criminal prosecutions of UK officials.
• Where the United Kingdom is involved in the transfer of a person outside British territory and British control, condition continued UK involvement on guarantees that the person has the opportunity to challenge the lawfulness of the transfer in an independent court prior to the transfer, including on the grounds of torture or other ill-treatment.
• End efforts to pass the Security and Justice bill, which would widen the use of secret hearings whenever national security grounds are invoked in civil court proceedings, excluding the person affected and their lawyer from the courtroom and preventing disclosure of material showing UK involvement in wrongdoing by other countries.
• Provide a full accounting of the involvement of British security services in the detention or transfer of individuals to other countries without process since September 11, 2001, including the names of the victims, dates, level of involvement, locations to which they were transferred, and last known whereabouts.
• Publish without delay current and past guidance to the intelligence services on interrogation of suspects overseas.
• Legislate to revise the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and the Intelligence Act 1994 to clarify that superior orders or acting under “lawful authority” can never be a defense to complicity or participation in torture abroad.
• Revise or abolish section 135 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which permits the attorney general to prevent a prosecution on torture-related charges. In the meantime, the attorney general should announce that he will not intervene in any prosecution for crimes connected with torture, but will defer all decisions on prosecutions to the director of public prosecutions.

To the Government of Libya

• Cooperate with parties conducting investigations into the rendition of individuals to Libya since 2001.
• Promptly investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment in detention facilities run by the state and armed groups in a thorough and impartial way.
• Hold accountable all those responsible for using torture or ill-treatment against persons in custody.
• Ensure that national laws provide safeguards against abuse by law enforcement officials during arrest and detention activities, as well as safeguards to ensure full due process rights.
• Ensure that confessions and other forms of evidence obtained by means of torture are not admissible in a court of law.
• Sign and ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

To the Government of Pakistan

• Take all necessary measures to end the use of torture and other ill-treatment by Pakistani military intelligence agencies and civilian law enforcement agencies.
• Impartially investigate allegations of torture and other ill-treatment of terrorism suspects and, where sufficient evidence of wrongdoing exists, prosecute those responsible, regardless of position or rank.
• Ensure that all Pakistani military intelligence and law enforcement personnel at every level have received appropriate training in human rights law and its application in all cases, including with respect to terrorism suspects.

To the Government of the Netherlands

• The Netherlands was the only government implicated in this report that does appear to have provided one of those profiled here with a hearing prior to sending him to another country. However it should still conduct an investigation into the transfer of Muhammad Abu Farsan from the Netherlands to Sudan, leading to his rendition to Libya. The investigation should determine whether authorities properly upheld their obligations to assess the risk of abuse or persecution of Abu Farsan, not only in the initial receiving state to which they sent him, but also in the subsequent states to which he might be—and in fact was—expelled, returned, or extradited.
• As a part of the investigation into the transfer of Muhammad Abu Farsan, examine and disclose publicly the role that intelligence from the CIA or MI6 may have played in the Dutch government’s decision to transfer him to a country that did not offer sufficient protection against onward transfer to Libya.

To the Governments of China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Thailand

• Conduct an investigation into the transfers of Sami Mostefa al-Saadi and Abdul Hakim Belhadj to Libya, where there was clear risk of torture or ill-treatment upon return, and whether authorities properly upheld their obligations to protect individuals against these abuses.
• As a part of the investigation into the transfers of Saadi and Belhadj, examine and disclose publicly the role that intelligence from the CIA or MI6 may have played in each government’s decision not to prevent onward transfers to countries where they feared torture or other forms of persecution.

To the Governments of Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Morocco, and Sudan

• Conduct an investigation into the transfers of Muhammed Abu Farsan, Ismail Omar Gebril al-Lwatty, Saleh Hadiyah Abu Abdullah Di’iki, Mustafa Salim Ali el-Madaghi, Mafud al-Sadiq Embaya Abdullah, Abdullah Mohammed Omar al-Tawaty, and Othman Salah to countries where they feared torture or other forms of persecution, and whether authorities properly upheld their obligations to protect individuals against return to torture or other ill-treatment.
• As a part of the investigation into the transfers of Abu Farsan, Lwatty, Di’iki, Madaghi, Abdullah, Tawaty, and Salah, examine and disclose publicly the role that intelligence from the CIA or MI6 may have played in each government’s decision not to prevent transfers to Libya.