An American human
rights organization has called for a criminal investigation of the
former US administration officials over their authorization of torture
practices against terror suspects.
In a report released on Tuesday, the New York-based Human Rights
Watch (HRW) urged the current US administration and foreign governments
to prosecute the former President George W. Bush and some of his top
officials over crimes such as the use of torture, abduction and other
forms of prisoner mistreatment, The Guardian reported.
“The road to the violations … began within days of the September 11,
2001 attacks by al-Qaeda on New York and Washington, D.C, when the Bush
administration began crafting a new set of policies, procedures, and
practices for detainees captured in military and counterterrorism
operations outside the United States,” the report says, pointing to such
examples of torture as waterboarding and secret rendition.
Titled “Getting Away With Torture: The Bush Administration and
Mistreatment of Detainees,” the document also implicates Bush’s Vice
President Dick Cheney, the former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
and the ex-CIA chief George Tenet in illegal practices against
detainees.
HRW has stressed the necessity of the probe, saying that
prosecutions are required “…
