Thirty nine people said to have 'disappeared' in US custody

"Six human rights groups released Wednesday a list of 39 people they believe have been secretly imprisoned by the United States and whose whereabouts are unknown and called on the Bush administration to abandon secret detentions," according to advance copy of an article to run in Thursday's New York Times.

Files Reuters: "Six human rights groups urged the U.S. government on Thursday to name and explain the whereabouts of 39 people they said were believed to have been held in U.S. custody and "disappeared." Excerpts follow.





The groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said they filed a U.S. federal lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information about the 39 people it terms "ghost prisoners" in the U.S. "war on terror."

"Since the end of Latin America's dirty wars, the world has rejected the use of 'disappearances' as a fundamental violation of international law," Professor Meg Satterthwaite of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University's School of Law said in a statement.

The report said suspects' relatives, including children as young as seven, had been held in secret detention on occasion.

In September, U.S. President George W. Bush acknowledged the CIA had interrogated dozens of suspects at secret overseas locations and said 14 of those held had been sent to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay."

MORE FROM REUTERS HERE...



