We are writing on behalf of Human Rights Watch to express concern about the US government’s stated intention to pursue “diplomatic assurances” of humane treatment from the government of Jordan in order to remove a Palestinian national, Majed Talat Hajbeh, who has been granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Human Rights Watch urges the US government to refrain from seeking diplomatic assurances from the Jordanian authorities in Mr. Hajbeh’s case— assurances which cannot adequately protect Mr. Hajbeh from torture and abuse.
Mr. Hajbeh holds a Jordanian passport and has been a legal permanent resident of the US since January 1993. He is currently in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville, Virginia. He has been in detention since June 10, 2003, having spent a considerable amount of that time in Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth, Virginia. His petition for habeas corpus is currently pending in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
An immigration judge ordered Mr. Hajbeh removed on September 15, 2004 due to a violation of US immigration law, but deferred removal under 8 C.F.R §1208.17 and the US’s obligations under the Convention Against Torture. The immigration judge concluded that it was “more likely than not” that Mr. Hajbeh would be tortured if transferred to Jordan. He based that conclusion on Mr. Hajbeh’s past detention and torture, including beatings, sexual abuse, and sleep deprivation, at the hands of the Jordanian security services, General Intelligence Department, (GID) in 1993.
The immigration judge also noted that Hajbeh’s co-defendants in a 1999 trial for terrorism-related crimes alleged that they were tortured during interrogations in GID custody. Jordanian appeals courts reversed the men’s convictions three times because they found that they were based on confessions extracted under torture and other serious procedural defects. Mr. Hajbeh was convicted in absentia in those proceedings as he had already departed Jordan and was living in the US at the time the crime occurred. According to Mr. Hajbeh’s lawyers, another man, Muhamed Omar Yousef Aljaghamin (or Mohamed Al-Jeramaine) later confessed to the car explosion for which Mr. Hajbeh and twenty-seven other men were initially convicted and testified that none of the original defendants were involved.
Mr. Hajbeh remains in detention based on the US government’s contention that it can remove him in the reasonably foreseeable future. In a June 23, 2006 letter, ICE requested that the US State Department pursue “diplomatic assurances” against torture from the Jordanian government in order to facilitate Mr. Hajbeh’s removal. We understand that this request is under consideration by the State Department and urge you to decline to seek assurances against torture in Mr. Hajbeh’s case.
Torture in Jordan
If returned to Jordan, the General Intelligence Department (GID) is likely to take Mr. Hajbeh into custody. The torture and ill-treatment of detainees in GID custody in Jordan is well-documented. In a January 2007 report summarizing his June 2006 visit to Jordan, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak confirmed that the practice of torture in Jordan is widespread—and for those in GID custody, it is “routine.”
The forms of torture detailed by the special rapporteur included beatings with a variety of blunt instruments (truncheons, batons, plastic pipes); use of electric shock batons; and burning with cigarette butts. Although the special rapporteur found that the head of GID’s anti-terrorism unit, Ali Burjaq, was personally implicated in acts of torture, the Jordanian government has never held him to account for these abuses. This is just one of many examples of what Nowak labels “institutional impunity” for perpetrators of torture in Jordan. The Jordanian government has never prosecuted any GID official or agent for torture under the Jordanian penal code.
Your own reporting in the US Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2005 states that “police and security forces in Jordan allegedly abused detainees during detention and interrogation and reportedly also used torture.” The most widely reported abuses included beating, sleep deprivation, extended solitary confinement, and physical suspension, according to the State Department report.
The Canadian Commission of Inquiry into the treatment of Maher Arar, a dual Canadian-Syrian national transferred from the US in 2002 through Jordan to Syria, where he was tortured, found that Jordanian security agents ill-treated Arar and facilitated his transfer to Syria. The inquiry concluded that Jordanian security operatives beat, blindfolded, and drove Mr. Arar from Jordan to Syria.
A number of international nongovernmental human rights organizations have also reported that torture and ill-treatment in GID custody in Jordan remain serious problems. Human Rights Watch’s September 2006 report, Suspicious Sweeps: The General Intelligence Department and Jordan’s Rule of Law Problem, documented the arbitrary arrest and abusive treatment of detainees held in GID custody and included 16 individual case studies.
Given Mr. Hajbeh’s past torture at the hands of GID agents and the fact that the torture and ill-treatment of persons in GID custody is routine, Mr. Hajbeh would be at grave risk of such abuse if returned to Jordan.
Diplomatic Assurances from Jordan
There is no basis upon which to trust diplomatic assurances against torture from the Jordanian authorities, whose agents routinely deny that they employ torture. In his January 2007 report, Manfred Nowak states that the heads of the security forces and detention facilities he visited denied any knowledge of torture, despite having been presented with substantial allegations of such abuse. According to the special rapporteur, “The total denial of knowledge of torture is astonishing and points to a lack of awareness and recognition by officials of the nature of the prohibition of torture…and of its gravity and severity.” Government assurances of humane treatment for one specific person cannot be considered credible when the same government routinely flouts its international obligations not to engage in torture and denies that it does so.
Diplomatic assurances are, as a practical matter, unenforceable, and there is no recourse for a person if the assurances are breached. The lack of any credible enforcement of the ban against torture in Jordan, and particularly for those in GID custody, makes it unlikely that any person detained there on terrorism-related charges would even be willing to report torture to Jordanian officials. To do so would be to risk reprisals against the detainee or his or her family members. Even if a detainee made allegations of torture, the lack of political independence on the part of law enforcement, the security services, and the military courts in Jordan make it unlikely that a credible and comprehensive investigation would ensue.
The State Department’s own reporting states that Jordanian police and security officials frequently denied detainees timely access to lawyers, making it difficult to verify allegations of torture. This lack of access will make it difficult – if not impossible – to verify any account of torture and hold the Jordanian government to its promise not to torture or abuse Mr. Hajbeh.
High-level US administration officials have admitted that the US has a limited capacity to enforce diplomatic assurances against torture. On February 16, 2005, then-Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss testified before Congress regarding the US’s practice of transferring terrorism suspects abroad based on assurances. He stated: “We have a responsibility of trying to ensure that they are properly treated, and we try and do the best we can to guarantee that. But of course once they’re out of our control, there’s only so much we can do.” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales also said in a March 2005 interview that the US State Department and CIA secure assurances that detainees subject to transfer will be treated humanely upon return, but that once a detainee is in custody in another country, “We can’t fully control what that country might do. We obviously expect a country to whom we have rendered a detainee to comply with their representations to us… If you're asking me, 'Does a country always comply?' I don't have an answer to that."
These striking admissions by US government officials acknowledge that once a detainee is transferred there is no way to enforce diplomatic assurances or fully guarantee a returnee’s safety. Reliance on such unenforceable assurances is particularly dangerous for Mr. Hajbeh, given his specific experiences with the GID in the past and the GID’s general poor record on torture and abuse.
Human Rights Watch urges the US government to refrain from seeking diplomatic assurances from the Jordanian authorities in Mr. Hajbeh’s case— assurances which cannot adequately protect Mr. Hajbeh from torture and abuse.
Sincerely,
Sarah Leah Whitson
Executive Director
Middle East and North Africa Division
Jennifer Daskal
Advocacy Director
US Program
cc. Michael Chertoff
Julie Myers
