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Secret CIA Flights in Europe

"The Rule Against Torture Is Absolute"

For weeks, Europe has been up in arms about alleged secret CIA flights that have shuttled terror suspects through the continent on their way to third countries for interrogation. SPIEGEL ONLINE talked with British human rights leader Shami Chakrabarti on why this is such an important issue and why the US needs to provide transparency.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why should we be concerned about these secret CIA flights?

Shami Chakrabarti: Ultimately of all the things that democrats believe in, the one thing that distinguishes them from dictators and, indeed, terrorists, is our complete prohibition on torture, our complete abhorrence of torture. There are all sorts of difficult choices that democracies make. But the rule against torture is absolute. If there's any suggestion whatsoever that that is compromised, that is the beginning of the end of the post war human rights consensus and the end of any moral authority that great democracies like the United States and the United Kingdom have in relation to dictators and terrorists around the globe.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: These flights -- indeed the US practice known as 'extraordinary renditions' which sees the US detaining terror suspects and then flying them to third countries for interrogation -- have been known about for a long time. Why are they suddenly an issue now?

Chakrabarti: From our point of view, it's become particularly pertinent with suggestions that Britain is a staging post. Liberty is a domestic British NGO and we don't have a lot of jurisdiction over what the Americans are or aren't doing in their own territory or what they are doing in the developing world. It is important to make our feelings known if there is even a faint whisp that Britain is involved -- either knowingly or unknowingly. We will not tolerate it.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In addition to the CIA flights, there have also been accusations, originally made by the Washington Post in early November, that the US is operating secret prisons -- so-called 'dark sites' -- in Eastern Europe. Are they two different issues?

Chakrabarti: There isn't a moral difference. The fundamental legal, constitutional, moral, political question is whether there can be any compromise in a democracy over the issue of torture. Now we believe very strongly as post-war people committed to human rights and democracy, that the one absolute in the human rights framework is on torture. If you trim that even a little bit even in times of great peril, the whole edifice of democracy, human rights and the rule of law will begin to crumble -- not just morally and philosophically, but in real terms in your propaganda effort to persuade dictators and persuade terrorists that you cannot torture people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The US has argued that the dangers posed by terrorism are such that we need to make some sacrifices to our democratic rights in order to combat it.

Chakrabarti: There is a British man, a very elderly peace campaigner, who is currently being held hostage in Iraq. And there are people out there from the British Muslem community saying 'please, he's a peaceful man, please don't harm him, please don't torture him.' They are saying, essentially, that the ends do not justify the means. Whatever you think about the British presence in Iraq, whatever you think about bad things that have happened to Iraqis or Muslims around the world, the ends do not justify the means.

If that's what we believe, then we have to make sure we set the example. If we're hypocritical about those values, we stand no chance at all, it seems to me, of persuading future generations of British people or of persuading Muslems around the world, that torture is an abomination that should never be tolerated.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Prior to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to Europe this week, the White House seemed to be indicating that perhaps European governments knew more about the CIA flights than they are admitting. Is the US trying to share the blame?

Chakrabarti: Who knows? The point is that there is no transparency here. The point is that the United States and Great Britain are two great democracies and they have embedded in their constitutional framework an abhorrence of torture and if there is any suggestion that this is going on with or without the direct knowledge or complicity of American or British government, then this is a very, very serious charge indeed. All we want is transparency. All we want is Condoleezza Rice to say what the American position is or is not in relation to rendering people for torture. And all we want is that the British police and the British government say what their position is on such allegations and whether they would tolerate Britain being used in this way.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It sounds like you are accepting the allegations of torture at face value.

Chakrabarti: I think that if the United States feel as I do -- which they ought to because they have, in a sense, a more embedded constitutional tradition, a more embedded rights tradition than we have here in the United Kingdom -- then they will be more transparent and they will put their cards on the table. Any kind of prevarication or evasion about these answers really makes one worry. It's very simple -- all that Condoleezza Rice has to do essentially to satisfy me in the first instance is to say 'this is shocking. Of course we would never engage in torture or sending people off and contracting out our torture chambers having offshore torture chambers in a way that some people have offshore tax havens. Of course we wouldn't tolerate this. These are serious allegations and of course we will investigate.' That's all she has to say. If she says something different, slightly more evasive or mealy-mouthed, then one will begin to really worry.

Interview conducted by Charles Hawley