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Sweden

The rendition cases of Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed al-Zari from Stockholm to Cairo in December 2001 are among the most well-documented to date. While the Swedish government’s reply sets out some of the basic facts regarding the case, there are important omissions in its account, including the inadequate response of the Swedish government to the U.N. Committee against Torture’s May 2005 decision finding Sweden in violation of article 3 of the Convention Against Torture for transferring Agiza to Cairo where he was tortured.

The Swedish government makes only one reference to the United States government in its response to the DH-S-TER, but it is essential for a full accounting to recall that Agiza and al-Zari were originally placed under surveillance in Sweden as a result of U.S. interest in the men;²⁰ handed over to U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives at Bromma Airport on December 18, 2001; ill-treated by both Swedish security personnel and the CIA operatives at the airport; transported to Cairo aboard a CIA-leased plane in the custody of both U.S. and Swedish intelligence and security personnel; and interrogated in Egyptian custody for a full five weeks before any Swedish official made contact with the men.

As a result of U.S. involvement in this case, it is currently of interest to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights investigation into CIA operations and alleged secret detentions in Council of Europe member states. The cases also should be of interest to the Secretary General inquiry under Article 52 ECHR on the question of secret detention and transport of detainees suspected of terrorist acts, notably by, or at the instigation of, foreign agencies. Human Rights Watch has written to the Secretary General to encourage him to ask the Swedish authorities for full disclosure of the details of the men’s transfers.

The Swedish government failed to include these cases in its article 52 response to the Secretary General, the omission of which is likely predicated on the timeframe established by the Secretary General’s office, requiring information about CIA operations on member states’ territory from January 1, 2002 onward. We believe that it is insufficient for the Swedish authorities to explain this omission by saying that these renditions occurred a few days earlier than the starting date of the article 52 inquiry, given that Sweden has a continuing involvement in the Agiza and al-Zari case as evidenced by its response to the DH-S-TER.²¹

The CIA-led renditions of Agiza and al-Zari occurred with the full knowledge of the Swedish authorities, who utilized diplomatic assurances from Egypt as a tool to circumvent their absolute obligation not to return any person to a place where she or he would be at risk of torture. The U.N. Committee against Torture subsequently ruled that Sweden had in fact violated that international obligation and required the government of Sweden to take steps in response to that judgment. In a letter to the Swedish authorities in August 2005, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International Sweden detailed a number of measures the government should take with respect to full compliance with both the letter and spirit of the Committee’s decision. To date, the government of Sweden has not only failed to comply with the decision, but has publicly – and incorrectly – expressed the opinion that the decision has no legally binding character. In an interview on Swedish radio on November 16, 2005, the then-Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds stated that “there is no legal responsibility” flowing from the Committee’s decision and that “the decision carries no legal consequences.”²² 

The authority of the Committee against Torture derives from Sweden’s accession to the Convention against Torture (CAT), in particular its declaration to abide by CAT article 22, which permits the Committee to hear individual petitions involving the party state. If Sweden cannot be trusted to fully comply in good faith with the Committee’s decisions –and challenges the binding nature of those decisions – how can it be trusted to abide by bilateral “understandings” such as diplomatic assurances, which have no such legal character? 

The DH-S-TER may wish to use the Agiza and al-Zari rendition cases as examples of the clear and unequivocal way in which diplomatic assurances fail to serve as a safeguard, instead providing governments with a tool to circumvent their legally binding treaty obligations.

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