Guantánamo.178 While he explained that the CIA was no longer holding any detainees in
secret locations at that time,179 his Executive Order 13440, addressing the requirement for
the compliance of the programme with Common Article 3, officially confirmed in July
2007 that the CIA was still running the programme.180 Furthermore, two other “high-value
detainees” were apprehended and held in secret detention in late 2006 and 2007, before
their transfer to Guantánamo in 2007 and 2008, respectively.181
154. “High-value detainees” subjected to the CIA rendition, detention and interrogation
programme were held in incommunicado detention for periods of 16 months up to almost
four and a half years.182 During this time, detainees were placed in secret facilities outside
judicial control and outside the legal protection provided for by both international
humanitarian and human rights law.183 They were flown to multiple facilities around the
world, estimated between three and ten,184 which facilitated their detention without charge,
without access to habeas corpus and without the ability to exercise other applicable
rights.185 In the secret CIA detention facilities, detainees were held in solitary confinement
and were unable to access counsel or relatives.186 Without access to the outside world,
those subjected to the RDI programme were unable to challenge the lawfulness of their
detention.187 Five detainees were even reportedly removed from CIA detention in
178
United States President George W. Bush, “President Discusses the Creation of Military Commissions to Try Suspected
Terrorists”, The White House website, 6 September 2006, <http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060906-3.html>; UN Special Procedures, “Joint study on global practices in
relation to secret detention”, op. cit., note 109, para. 105.
179
George W. Bush, “President Discusses the Creation of Military Commissions”, ibid.; Senate Study on the CIA RDI
Programme, Executive Summary, op. cit., note 171, p. 16.
180
United States President George W. Bush, Executive Order 13440, “Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article
3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency”, 20 July 2007,
<http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2007-07-24/pdf/07-3656.pdf>. See also CIA - “Extraordinary Rendition” Flights, Torture
and Accountability - A European Approach (Berlin: European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, 2009), Second
edition, p. 35 <http://www.ecchr.de/ecchr-publications/articles/publications.html>.
181
These detainees are Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi and Muhammad Rahim. Senate Study on the CIA RDI Programme, Executive
Summary, op. cit., note 171, pp. 143, 461; UN Special Procedures, “Joint study on global practices in relation to secret
detention”, op. it., note 109, para. 129; “Defense Department Takes Custody of a High-Value Detainee”, United States
Department of Defense website, 27 April 2007, <http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid= 10792>; “Defense
Department Takes Custody of a High-Value Detainee”, United States Department of Defense website, 14 March 2008,
<http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=11758>.
182
This takes into account the time spent in secret detention by the first 14 high-value detainees transferred to Guantánamo in
2006. “ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen ‘High Value Detainees’ in CIA Custody”, ICRC, February 2007(hereinafter,
“ICRC Report”), p. 3, <http://wlstorage.net/file/icrc-report-2007.pdf>; Laura N. Pannelle, “The Guantanamo Gap: Can Foreign
Nationals Obtain Redress for Prolonged Arbitrary Detention and Torture Suffered Outside the United States?”, California
Western International Law Journal, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2005, p. 312,
<http://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1139&context=cwilj>; ECtHR, Al Nashiri v. Poland, op.
cit., note 172, paras. 397-398, 401.
183
Pannelle, “The Guantanamo Gap”, ibid., p. 312; ICRC Report, ibid., p. 24; The Report of The Constitution Project's Task
Force on Detainee Treatment (Washington: The Constitution Project, 2013), pp. 168-169, <http://detaineetaskforce.org/pdf/FullReport.pdf>.
184
ICRC Report, ibid., p. 6; ECtHR, Al Nashiri v. Poland, op. cit., note 172, para. 398.
185
UN Special Procedures, “Joint study on global practices in relation to secret detention”, op. cit., note 109, para. 141; The
Report of The Constitution Project's Task Force on Detainee Treatment, op. cit., note 183, pp. 168-169.
186
The UN joint study concluded such factors amounted to arbitrary detention. UN Special Procedures, “Joint study on global
practices in relation to secret detention”, ibid., paras. 20, 106, 126, 146, 179; The Report of The Constitution Project's Task Force
on Detainee Treatment, ibid., p. 16; ECtHR, Al Nashiri v. Poland, op. cit., note 172, para. 398.
187
Pannelle, “The Guantanamo Gap”, op. cit., note 182, p. 312; ICRC Report, op. cit., note 182, p. 7.
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