New York - Human Rights Watch listed on Monday the names of 11 senior al-Qaeda suspects it said were held by the CIA in secret locations overseas, where some had reportedly been tortured.
The suspects were detained with no notification to their families, no Red Cross access and, in some cases, no acknowledgement that they are even being held, the New York-based watchdog said in a 46-page report.
"'Disappearances' were a trademark abuse of Latin American military dictatorships in their 'dirty war' on alleged subversion," said Human Rights Watch special counsel Reed Brody.
"Now they have become a United States tactic in its conflict with al-Qaeda," Brody said.
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'Those guilty of serious crimes must be brought to justice before fair trials' Latin American prisoners who were killed and buried in secret were often called the "disappeared."
Detainees profiled in the report included Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged principal architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks and Abu Zubayda, reputedly a close aide of Osama bin Laden.
Mohammed, among others, has reportedly been tortured in custody, according to the report.
While recognising the US' right to gather anti-terror intelligence, Human Rights Watch argued that the secret incommunicado detention of suspects violated the "most basic principles" of a free society.
"Those guilty of serious crimes must be brought to justice before fair trials," said Brody. "If the United States embraces the torture and 'disappearance' of its opponents, it abandons its ideals and international obligations and becomes a lesser nation."
Calling on the US to bring all detainees, wherever they are being held, under the protection of the law, the report demanded that the International Committee of the Red Cross be given unrestricted access to all those held pursuant to anti-terrorist operations.
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