ACLU Sues Boeing Subsidiary for Participation in CIA Kidnapping and Torture Flights"The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a federal lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Company, on behalf of three victims of the United States government's unlawful "extraordinary rendition" program. The lawsuit charges that Jeppesen knowingly provided direct flight services to the CIA that enabled the clandestine transportation of Binyam Mohamed, Abou Elkassim Britel and Ahmed Agiza to secret overseas locations where they were subjected to torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
"American corporations should not be profiting from a CIA rendition program that is unlawful and contrary to core American values," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "Corporations that choose to participate in such activity can and should be held legally accountable."
US legal rulings & other info on the caseBinyam Mohamed launches legal fight to stop US destroying torture images"In a sworn statement seen by the Guardian, Mohamed has appealed to the federal district court in Washington not to destroy the photograph, which neither he nor his lawyers have a copy of, and which is classified under US law.
The US government considered the case closed once Mohamed was released and returned to Britain in February. The photograph will be destroyed within 30 days of his case being dismissed by the American courts – a decision on which is due to be taken by a judge imminently, Clive Stafford Smith, Mohamed's British lawyer and director of Reprieve, the legal charity, said today .
Under US law, evidence relating to dismissed cases must be automatically destroyed. The only way to preserve the photograph is to have it accepted as a court document."
Human Cargo: Binyam Mohamed and the Rendition Frequent Flyer ProgrammeBINYAM MOHAMED’S FIRST U.S. RENDITION: PAKISTAN TO THE TORTURE CHAMBER IN MOROCCO
On or around 21 July 2002 Binyam reports being taken to a military airport in Islamabad, with two others also apparently slated for rendition. After around two hours of waiting, Binyam was turned over to American personnel. Binyam describes a routine consistently recounted by numerous victims, and recorded by NGOs, government inquiries and other witnesses around the world, that has come to be known as the modus operandi of US renditions. Binyam recalls that his kidnappers were dressed in black, with masks, wearing what looked like Timberland boots. They stripped him naked, took photos, put fingers up his anus and dressed him in a tracksuit. Binyam was then shackled, with ear-mufflers, blindfolded, and put into a plane. He was tied to the seat for the roughly 8-10 hour flight, and arrived on 22 July 2002, in a place he later learnt was Morocco.
N379P
According to official Eurocontrol flight data, at twenty-five minutes to six in the evening of 21 July 2002, Gulfstream V N379P left Islamabad, arriving in Rabat at eighteen minutes to four in the morning. Gulfstream V N379P is a plane that was then owned by a CIA front company called Premier Executive Transport, and is according to Amnesty International the plane “most frequently associated with known cases of rendition.”
N379P has been dubbed “the torture taxi” by journalists and plane spotters around the world. The distance from Islamabad to Rabat is 7,031 km (4,369 miles). N379P had an average range of 5,800 nautical miles, cruising at between 459 and 585 knots. At 470 knots, then, the flight from Islamabad to Rabat would take just over 8 hours, which is consistent with Binyam’s estimate that the flight took 8-10 hours.
More back story on the US/Torture/CIA/Extraordinary Rendition/Binyam Mohamed.
You can also do a search on DU. Several of us have been keeping up with his story.
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