CIA torture report triggers prosecution calls from UN, human rights groups

PanARMENIAN.Net - The UN and human rights groups have called for the prosecution of U.S. officials involved in what a Senate report called the "brutal" CIA interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects, according to BBC News. A top UN human rights envoy said there had been a "clear policy orchestrated at a high level". The CIA has defended its actions in the years after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., saying they saved lives. President Barack Obama said it was now time to move on. UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism Ben Emmerson said that senior officials from the administration of George W Bush who planned and sanctioned crimes must be prosecuted, as well as CIA and U.S. government officials responsible for torture such as waterboarding. Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said that the CIA's actions were criminal "and can never be justified". The American Civil Liberties Union (Aclu) argued that the attorney general should appoint a special prosecutor to conduct "an independent and complete investigation of Bush administration officials who created, approved, carried out and covered up the torture programme". "The crime of torture has no statute of limitations when torture risks or results in serious injury or death, and the U.S. government has the obligation under international law to investigate any credible evidence that torture has been committed," an Aclu statement said. "If there's sufficient evidence of criminal conduct... The offenders should be prosecuted. In our system, no one should be above the law, yet only a handful of mainly low-level personnel have been criminally prosecuted for abuse. That is a scandal."