5 Minute Guide: Rendition

What happened?

The controversial practice of rendition involves the capture and transfer of terror suspects across the world, without legal process.

The renditions - also know as torture flights - were first pioneered by the CIA in the mid-1990s, as it tried to fight terrorist organisations, particularly al-Qaida.

As part of the process, so called snatch-squads were set up to abduct key targets.

Destinations for the CIA flights have included Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, Qatar, Jordan, Morocco and even Uzbekistan - the latter being a country which has reportedly boiled prisoners alive.

The secret flights have also been used to move suspects to the US detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Although the US has effectively administered rendition flights via its security services, many other countries - including Britain - are said to be complicit in the activity.

The flights have landed on UK airfields, as well as at British sovereign territory worldwide. In late 2006, MPs demanded an inquiry.

Some of the suspects spirited away by the CIA include 27-year-old Yemeni citizen Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, who was taken from Karachi University to the nearby airport in 2001, and Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr who was taken by the CIA in Milan in 2003, and deported to Egypt.

According to one estimate, about 100 people have been taken by the CIA on European territory and rendered to countries where they may have been tortured.

Why did it happpen?

By flying suspects to countries other than the United States, the CIA can avoid giving detainees access to the protection of American law.

It effectively allows a quick and easy way to interrogate terror suspects, away from judicial or human rights scrutiny.

It has been argued that granting terror suspects access to US law would endanger intelligence sources and methods - and that barbaric methods are justified if they prevent terrorist attacks.

The controversial practice has also been defended via suggestions that culturally-informed and native interrogations are more successful in gaining information from suspects.

What happens next?

As with the indefinite detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, the so-called torture flights have drawn huge criticism.

Critics say the practice is immoral, unconstitutional, and defies the Geneva Convention.

As a signatory of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the United States has been accused of gross hypocrisy.

Amnesty International has continually called for the practice to be stopped. Aside from ethical issues, doubts have also been raised about the efficacy of rendition.

Key players

Talaat Fouad Qassem
In September 1995 Fouad Qassem was the first terror suspect to be subjected to rendition.

He was one of Egypt's most wanted terrorists and was picked up by US security forces in the Croatian capital of Zagreb - while travelling between Bosnia and Denmark.

He was interrogated by US agents on a ship in the Adriatic Sea and was then sent back to Egypt.

He disappeared while in custody and is suspected by human rights activists to have been executed without a trial.

Central Intelligence Agency
The CIA is an intelligence agency of the US government.

It was founded in 1947 when Franklin D Roosevelt was president, to obtain and analyse information about foreign governments, corporations and people key to US interests.

It is said to be the hidden hand of the US government and engages in covert operations under the direction of the president.

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