Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

them to Libya in violation of their right to non-refoulement. Other countries also held
detainees without charge or trial and subjected them to torture or ill-treatment. Govern-
ments had sufficient information to determine that LIFG members sent back to Libya faced
torture—most suffered serious abuses and violations of their due process rights. The
Netherlands gave Muhammad Abu Farsan an asylum hearing before deporting him to
Sudan. However, an investigation into the role that intelligence from MI6 or the CIA may
have played in the transfer, and whether Dutch authorities adequately assessed the risk of
ultimate transfer to Libya, should be undertaken. 456
A number of detainees in US and later Libyan custody faced long periods of solitary
confinement. The UN Commission on Human Rights noted in an April 2003 resolution that
“prolonged incommunicado detention may facilitate the perpetration of torture and can
itself constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or even torture.” 457 The UN
Human Rights Committee stated that “prolonged solitary confinement of the detained or
imprisoned person may amount to acts prohibited by article 7” of the ICCPR on torture and
ill-treatment. 458 The UN special rapporteur on torture stated in an August 2011 report that
“social isolation and sensory deprivation [in solitary confinement] that is imposed by some
States does, in some circumstances, amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
and even torture.” 459
The United States in particular sought to get around the prohibition on rendition to torture
through the use of “diplomatic assurances”—promises obtained from the receiving government
that the transferee would not be ill-treated. Requests for these promises appear in
some of the Tripoli Documents. One document from the CIA to Libya’s Musa Kusa shows the
CIA trying to help the Libyans “assume control” of senior LIFG member Saadi in Hong Kong.
456 See, for example, UN Committee against Torture, Korban v. Sweden, CAT/C/21/D/088/1997 (November 16, 1988), para.
6.5, 7 (The Committee ruled that Sweden had an obligation to refrain from forcibly returning the complainant to Jordan—even
though it was never alleged he would face torture there—because he ran the risk, according to the evidence, of being
expelled from that country to Iraq).
457 UN Commission on Human Rights, “Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” Resolution
2003/32, E/CN.4/2003/L.11/Add.4, para. 14.
458 UN Human Rights Committee, “Replaces General Comment 7 Concerning Prohibition of Torture and Cruel Treatment or
Punishment (Art. 7),” General Comment No. 20, Compilation of General Comments and General Recommendations Adopted
by Human Rights Treaty Bodies, U.N. Doc. HRI/GEN/1/Rev.1 at 30 (1994), para. 6. Article 7 of the ICCPR states: “No one shall
be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
459 UN Human Rights Council, Interim report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment, Juan Mendez, A/66/268, August 5, 2011, para. 20.
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