NEW YORK - Human Rights Watch on Tuesday accused FBI agents of turning a blind eye to the unlawful detention and torture of two US citizens of Pakistani origin by the Pakistani security services.
The New York-based watchdog said FBI agents interrogated brothers Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal on at least six occasions during an eight-month period when the two men were being routinely tortured to extract confessions of involvement in terrorist activities.
The brothers were abducted from their home in the southern Pakistan port city of Karachi on August 13, 2004, Human Rights Watch said. They were released on April 22, 2005 without having been charged.
Not only did the FBI agents not intervene to end the torture, they also threatened the men with being sent to the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba if they did not confess to involvement in terrorism, the watchdog said.
Human Rights Watch Asia director Brad Adams said information about the case was based on extensive and separate interviews with the two brothers since their release and other sources.
"It is outrageous that Pakistan abducts people from their homes in the middle of the night and tortures them in secret prisons to extract confessions, all the while ignoring court orders to produce their victims in court," Adams said.
"The United States should be condemning this, but instead it either directed this activity or turned a blind eye in the hopes of gaining information in the war on terror," he said.
Pakistan's record of routine torture is well known, Adams stressed, citing last year's US State Department's human rights report which documented beatings, burning with cigarettes, whipping the soles of the feet and electric shocks used by the security forces.
"Pakistan's dreadful record on illegal detentions and torture ... should have acted as a stop sign for the FBI," said Adams. "Instead, the FBI aided and abetted the illegal actions of the Pakistani security services by participating in the interrogations."
During questioning by the FBI agents, the Afzal brothers said they were repeatedly told: "'We cannot say what your crime is and how long you will be held. But you are a terrorist and you could be taken to Cuba'."
05/24/2005 15:20 GMT