It was reported in several independent news outlets this weekend that a secretly leased Gulfstream Jet is being used by the US to transport 'prisoners' to countries where they can then be tortured.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/commo...E2703%2C00.html

What has our nation become? I am so ashamed that we are just standing by and allowing this facist regime to take our country over. Bush supposedly believes and practices the Christian faith. If this is so, then how can he support and select the very people that are doing everything his Faith dis-courages?

We have often wondered why the peoples of other countries didn't stand up to their dictator or oppresive leadership and demand their civil rights be maintained. How can they just sit there and allow their families be taken to slaughter like so many sheep... well, 'Baaa baaaa'.

I am curious: Do the soldiers/people 'in the loop' of military autrocities have a choice? I know that it is considered to be national security stuff, but what about civil rights and just knowing right from wrong?

Curious

well, here's the content of an email I sent out this morning...I think it is part of what ails america

This morning I listened to some "Christian" talk radio just to see what the attraction to fundamentalism is...

A woman caller was asking the radio personality about whether she thought it was very good for her daughter to engage in playing "combat games".
The radio host asked "what would be your objection"...the caller said "well, I don't want her to think killing if a sport or a game"...
The radio host replied that "Killing of OK biblically, there is always justification for killing, I mean if someone breaks in your house, then you have EVERY BIBLICAL JUSTIFICATION for killing them, that there are evil ones that deserve to be killed"... the caller was then told she had a "prejudice" against her little girl by not letting her engage in combat games and then encouraged her to send her somewhere to learn how to shoot a gun and martial arts.

Needless to say, the caller was practically speechless...and could not express her convictions with any authority...

I am thinking to myself, what kind of people think "killing is OK biblically". I think of Jesus' admonishment to "turn the other cheek", to love they neighbor as thyself! These words of wisdom from this fully actualized being are now being twisted into, killing's OK (cause the bible tells me so). I am astounded to hear the kind of things they call "Christian"...and I become more clear in my opinion that right wing fundamentalism is a "Christian cancer" AND only good people who truly adhere to the words of Christ can cure these people. Much prayer needs to be given to these people, they are sick with hatred, judgment and drunk with power.

My short version of this aspect of the human condition.

In the interest of politics, power, and money you can use:

1. fear 2. patriotism & 3. the selected parts of the Bible to justify anything you do.
If it is a mistake you look forward to the Rapture to sort things out.

Some well-meaning folks (military, paramilitary, and civilian) get caught in the crossfire. They go to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory depending on whose God really has the final say.

washingtonpost.com
A Secret Deportation Of Terror Suspects
2 Men Reportedly Tortured in Egypt

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A01

STOCKHOLM -- The airport police officer was about to close his small precinct station for the night, when two men wearing suits walked in. The visitors said the special Swedish security police had just arrested two suspected terrorists -- very dangerous men -- and needed a place to hold them until a plane could take them away.

The airport policeman recounted in an interview that he agreed to let them borrow his cramped office that night, Dec. 18, 2001, and stepped out of the way. But there was something strange about this operation. The two men in suits, who were soon joined by two uniformed Swedish police officers, did not speak Swedish, he said, and their English sounded distinctly American.

Another oddity: When the suspects arrived a few minutes later, they were escorted by a half-dozen security agents wearing hoods.

The hooded agents took the suspected terrorists into the precinct's dressing room. Inside, the agents cut off the prisoners' clothes with scissors, changed the men into red overalls and bound them with handcuffs and leg irons. Then they were hustled out the door and onto the tarmac, where a U.S.-registered Gulfstream V jet was waiting.

The men with covered faces "were very quiet," recalled Paul Forell, the police officer on duty at Stockholm's Bromma Airport that night. "When they gave orders to each other, they kept their voices down. It seemed like they had done this before. They were very professional." Forell said he could not hear them well enough to get a feel for their nationality.

The plane's destination was Cairo. Its two unwilling passengers were Egyptian nationals who had applied for asylum in Sweden more than a year earlier, hoping to take advantage of its extensive programs for refugees facing political arrest or persecution in their home countries. After welcoming the men at first, the Swedish government reversed its position after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The deportation was carried out swiftly and outside Sweden's normal legal channels. Officials gave final approval to the expulsion order at 4 p.m. on Dec. 18, according to accounts issued later by the government. The men had been grabbed on the street without warning by 5 p.m. and were in the air by 9:47 p.m. Their lawyers were not officially notified of the expulsion until after the plane had departed, to prevent them from filing appeals.

Playing a central and secret role in the operation: the U.S. government, which provided the plane, some agents and other logistical support, according to classified documents recently released by the Swedish government, as well as interviews in Stockholm and Cairo.

The CIA refers to such cases as "extraordinary renditions," the fast and forcible transfer of foreign terrorism suspects to other countries, often their places of origin, where they can be detained or interrogated more freely, often without all the legal protections available in the country they left.

Details of such operations are almost always secret, and the United States has not acknowledged its role in the deportation of the two Egyptian men. But CIA officials have testified in Congress about engaging in about 70 renditions before 2001. Security analysts said the number has increased substantially since then, as the U.S. government has become more aggressive in its global hunt for people considered a threat to national security.

Critics have charged that the practice is vulnerable to abuse, noting that suspects are usually deported to countries that are friendly to U.S. intelligence agencies but also have records of permitting torture or other human rights violations. In organizing such transfers, the U.S. government is engaging in practices abroad that would be illegal and unconstitutional at home, those critics have said.

The fate of the two Egyptian men offers a rare glimpse into such a case, as well as an example of what can go wrong.

The Swedish government, for instance, agreed to deport the suspects only after receiving assurances from Egypt that they would be given fair trials and "not be subjected to inhuman treatment or punishment of any kind," according to a confidential memo prepared by Swedish diplomats six days before the expulsion.

Records and interviews show, however, that the agreement was broken almost as soon as the two men arrived in Cairo. Their lawyers, relatives and human rights groups said there is credible evidence that they were regularly subjected to electric shocks and other forms of torture. One suspect was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a military tribunal after a trial that lasted less than six hours. The other spent almost two years behind bars without being charged.

Swedish government officials now say the deportation was an embarrassing mistake. The government has called for an international investigation, possibly under the authority of the United Nations, into how the two men were treated. Separately, the Swedish parliament has opened an internal probe to determine the exact role played by U.S. intelligence agents.

"We have taken the allegations seriously, very seriously," Deputy Foreign Minister Hans Dahlgren said in an interview in Stockholm. "We have asked for an independent, international investigation. . . . It would be in the best interests of the government of Egypt to do this" if the allegations are false.

Ties to Al Qaeda

The better known of the two repatriated men is Ahmed Agiza, a 42-year-old physician whose wife and five children remain in Sweden.

His attorneys have acknowledged that he once worked closely in Egypt with Ayman Zawahiri, the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who later merged that group with al Qaeda, becoming Osama bin Laden's second in command. Agiza was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which the State Department has designated a terrorist group.

Agiza said he had once met bin Laden, according to a jailhouse interview he gave to a Swedish radio reporter in 2002 shortly after he returned to Egypt. His attorneys said he cut ties with Zawahiri a decade ago and has denounced the use of violent tactics by Islamic radicals, including al Qaeda.

Agiza left his homeland in 1991, saying he had been repeatedly harassed by Egyptian security forces.

In 1999, while living in Iran, he was convicted in absentia by an Egyptian military court -- along with 106 other defendants -- of belonging to a banned Islamic organization. One year later, he and his family arrived in Sweden on false passports and applied for political asylum.

It is not clear whether Agiza knew Muhammad Zery, 35, the man with whom he would later be deported to Cairo. Zery also left Egypt in 1991, after he was harassed and physically abused there, according to his lawyer. He traveled to Saudi Arabia and Syria before arriving in Sweden in 1999 and requesting asylum.

Swedish officials have said that Zery, too, was convicted in absentia in Egypt and that he was a suspect in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, when he would have been 13 years old. But his attorneys and human rights groups that have worked on his behalf said there is no record that Zery was charged with any offenses in Egypt and they can't understand why he was expelled.

The allegations against him are all clearly erroneous, said his Swedish attorney, Kjell Jonsson. "The representatives of the [Swedish] government have been lying or not telling the full truth on this since the beginning."

Bo Johansson, a Stockholm lawyer who has represented Agiza, said Swedish diplomats in Cairo later told the Egyptian man's parents that he was deported because Sweden was under "international pressure" to do so.

"I think the American influence is a very important factor in all of this," Johansson said. "It is becoming clearer as more information comes out. Something happened very quickly after Sept. 11. . . . We had always thought there was an X factor at work here. Now we know that it must have been an American factor."

Secret U.S. Role

The U.S. involvement remained a secret until two months ago, when a Swedish television program -- Kalla Fakta, or "Cold Facts" -- broadcast a documentary reporting that U.S. agents assisted in the apprehension of Agiza and Zery, and that the plane chartered to Cairo had been used in a previous rendition case in Pakistan.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment for this article, and State Department officials declined to comment on the record. But the Swedish government has released previously classified documents that confirm the American role.

In a Feb. 7, 2002 memo, a partial reconstruction of the case by the Swedish security police noted that "the American side" had offered to help in the deportation "by lending a plane for the transport."

In addition, lawyers from the Swedish Justice Ministry wrote in a separate memo on April 12, 2002 that "the transport from Sweden to Egypt was carried out with the help of American authorities." Both documents were heavily redacted before their release.

A flight plan filed with Swedish aviation authorities shows that the Gulfstream jet was registered to a Massachusetts company, Premier Executive Transport Services. U.S. aviation records show that the firm has only two registered aircraft and that they have permits to land at U.S. military bases around the world.

Advocacy groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called on the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to open an inquiry into the case.

"The only way to discover what the U.S. role was is through an international inquiry under the auspices of the U.N.," said Julia Hall, a lawyer for New York-based Human Rights Watch. "There's no transparency otherwise. We just don't know what buttons were being pressed by whom."

While Sweden has said it would welcome such an investigation, the United Nations is unlikely to act unless Egypt agrees to cooperate, human rights groups said. Egyptian authorities declined to comment on that possibility. But Hossan Salama, an official with the Egyptian state security service, denied that the United States was directly involved in the deportation.

"The Americans had absolutely nothing to do with this capture," he said in a brief interview. "It was something completely done with the Swedes."

Prison Visits

As part of their agreement with the Egyptian government, Swedish diplomats insisted that they be allowed to visit Agiza and Zery in prison regularly to ensure that they were not mistreated.

Swedish officials did not schedule the first visit until more than a month after the men arrived in Egypt. They were not allowed to see them except in the presence of prison guards and were forced to rely on an interpreter provided by the Egyptian security services.

In a report made public shortly afterward, Sven Linder, the Swedish ambassador to Egypt, wrote that Agiza and Zery told him they had been treated "excellently" in prison and that to him "they seemed well-nourished and showed no external signs of physical abuse or such things."

Another section of the ambassador's report that remained classified until recently, however, offered a different appraisal. It noted that Agiza had complained that he was subjected to "excessive brutality" by the Swedish security police when he was seized and that he was repeatedly beaten in Egyptian prisons. Swedish diplomats in Cairo declined to comment on the case.

Agiza's parents and lawyers said in interviews that he was severely punished by his Egyptian captors after he complained to the Swedish officials and was warned to keep quiet during future visits.

"Torture is a systematic thing in these prisons," said Mohammed Zarai, director of the Human Rights Center for the Assistance of Prisoners in Cairo. "Every time when these people visited him, as soon as they left, he was beaten and tortured. They would ask him:. . . . Are they telling the Swedes to come visit?"

Agiza's mother, Hamida Shalaby, said he told her during separate visits that he was given electric shocks and that prison doctors tried to cover up scars on his body by applying a special cream. "He couldn't even pick up his arms to hug me," she said in an interview. "He was very slow and very tired and very weak."

Agiza's attorney in Stockholm has filed a complaint about the handling of his asylum case with the U.N. Committee Against Torture. Although the committee has no power to free him, it could rebuke Sweden for violating international conventions prohibiting torture if it determines that the Swedish government was liable for his alleged mistreatment by expelling him to Egypt.

"The Swedish government is facing a very hard situation now," said Hafez Abu-Seada, a Cairo lawyer who represented Agiza at his trial and serves as general secretary for the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. "Their reputation as a leading human rights nation is at stake."

Zery's attorney in Stockholm has filed a similar complaint on his client's behalf with the European Court of Human Rights.

Zery was released from a Cairo prison in October but is not permitted to leave the country and remains under strict surveillance by Egyptian security forces.

In a brief telephone conversation last week, he said he was willing to grant an interview and invited a reporter to visit. He canceled the appointment an hour later, however, saying that an Egyptian security official had ordered him not to talk.

Staff researcher Margot Williams in Washington contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2004Jul24.html

Sweden: Torture Inquiry Must Be Under U.N. Auspices
Independent Panel Must Probe Abuses by Sweden, Egypt and U.S. Operatives

(New York, May 27, 2004)

—An international inquiry under U.N. auspices is needed to credibly address allegations that two men expelled from Sweden to Egypt on an airplane leased by the U.S. government were mistreated and possibly tortured by agents of each country, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch called on Sweden and Egypt to seek the good offices of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in convening an expert panel to carry out the investigation.

The Swedish government called for an “international inquiry” after the Swedish television news program—Kalla Fakta—revealed on May 17 that the U.S. government was involved in the transfers of two asylum seekers, Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed al-Zari, from Sweden to Egypt. The Swedish Ministry of Justice has since confirmed this.

“Three governments are implicated in the abuse of these men,” said Rachel Denber, acting executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division. “There must be a full accounting. Otherwise, these cases will send yet another signal that when it comes to the ‘war on terror,’ anything goes—including torture.”

Human Rights Watch said that the participation of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in convening an expert panel could ensure that the inquiry is conducted with the necessary independence, expertise, and transparency.

The Kalla Fakta program included evidence that the two men were not only tortured upon their return to Egypt—as previously reported by the men’s lawyers and Swedish human rights groups—but were also physically abused by the Swedish police prior to being placed on the U.S. government-leased plane that transported them to Cairo.

The program also included a graphic description of the men’s treatment by hooded operatives aboard the plane, including details about their being blindfolded, hooded, drugged, and diapered. Press reports indicate that Egypt has agreed to an international inquiry into the treatment of Agiza and al-Zari following a visit to Cairo last week by a high-level delegation from the Swedish government.

Agiza and al-Zari were expelled from Sweden in December 2001. The Swedish government had acknowledged that both of the asylum seekers had a well-founded fear of being persecuted if returned to Egypt. However, the men were excluded from refugee status based on secret evidence that they were associated with Islamist groups responsible for acts of terrorism. In 1999, Agiza had been tried and convicted in absentia by an Egyptian military tribunal for terrorism-related acts. It remains unclear on what grounds al-Zari was expelled from Sweden and then imprisoned in Egypt. He was released from a Cairo prison in October 2003 without charge or trial, but remains under constant surveillance and is routinely summoned for interrogations.

To justify the expulsions the Swedish government relied upon “diplomatic assurances,” or formal guarantees from the Egyptian government that the two men would not be tortured and would have fair trials upon return. Human Rights Watch and a coalition of Swedish human rights groups subsequently learned that the men had been tortured and ill-treated in Egyptian prisons. International law prohibits absolutely the return of any person—no matter what his or her status or suspected crime—to a place where he would be at risk of torture or ill-treatment. There are no exceptions to this principle.

Moreover, a trial monitor from Human Rights Watch provided a firsthand account of Agiza’s re-trial in a military tribunal in April 2004 during which he made serious allegations of torture and ill-treatment. The re-trial was marred by numerous fair trial violations, proving that the Egyptian authorities did not keep their promise that Agiza would be granted a fair trial. Agiza was convicted again and sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment at hard labor.

“There is overwhelming evidence that Agiza’s and al-Zari’s most fundamental rights were violated repeatedly,” said Denber. “An independent inquiry, conducted by an international panel of experts, would be well-placed to evaluate that evidence and to hold accountable those actors responsible for any rights abuses.”

An independent, international inquiry investigating the treatment of Agiza and al-Zari must include several key elements in order to be an effective means of ensuring accountability and gaining public confidence:

Independence—None of the governments implicated in the abuses should be involved in investigating the violations. The inquiry should be staffed by independent personnel and have adequate resources. It should have the full cooperation of the Swedish, Egyptian and U.S. governments, as well as any U.N. mechanisms that have been involved in the men’s cases, including the Committee against Torture, the Human Rights Committee, and the Special Rapporteur on Torture.

International Expertise—The inquiry should be conducted by independent experts with experience in investigating torture and other human rights violations at an international level. They should have the stature and authority to ensure full cooperation from the governments under investigation.

Parameters of the Inquiry—A full accounting of the men’s treatment would require that the parameters include an investigation of their treatment in Sweden from the time they were apprehended by the Swedish authorities prior to their removal. It must also include their treatment on the plane and in transit to Cairo, and their treatment by the Egyptian authorities since their return and to date.

Full Procedural Powers—The inquiry should be empowered to summon witnesses and review documents, including classified materials. The inquiry should be empowered to visit Egypt and meet confidentially with Agiza and al-Zari, and their family members and lawyers in both Sweden and Egypt.

Protecting Witnesses—Given the sensitive nature of the inquiry, it should be vested with the power and resources to provide witness protection measures in the course of taking evidence. Witness protection measures, including monitoring of the two men and their family members, should continue after the inquiry to guarantee their security and prevent retribution.

Civil Society—The inquiry should also invite input from Swedish and international nongovernmental organizations that have conducted research and advocacy on the men’s cases or have particular expertise in an area of interest to the inquiry, for example, organizations that work with torture victims.

Transparency—The findings of the inquiry should be made public. To the extent possible in light of witness protection and national security concerns, any hearings convened by the inquiry should be open and public.

A representative from Human Rights Watch will be in Stockholm on June 1 and 2 to meet with Swedish government officials regarding the international inquiry and other aspects of the men’s cases.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/27/sweden8621_txt.htm

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Swedish TV4 Kalla Fakta Program: "The Broken Promise"
(English Transcript) Monday,17th May, 2004

Participants:
Sven Linder, former Swedish ambassador to Cairo:
Gun-Britt Andersson, former state secretary at the Foreign office
Hanan Attia, wife of Ahmed Agiza
Kjell Jönsson, lawyer to Mohammed Al Zery
Hafes Abu Seada, Agiza´s Egyptian lawyer
Sven-Olof Rosén, flight broker at Bromma airport
Thomas Hammarberg, head of the Olof Palme centre
Julia Hall, Counsel in the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human
Rights Watch
Arne Andersson, Swedish Security Police, SÄPO, responsible for the expulsion
Mikael Lundström, SÄPO
Hamida Shalaby, Agiza´s mother
Muhammed Al Zery, expelled and victim of torture
Mary Ellen McGuinness, Premier Executive Transport Services
Masood Anwar, reporter The News, Karachi, Pakistan
Ahmed Omar Abo El Seoud, general, Egyptian State security service
George Tenet, head of CIA
Susan Fayeed, psychiatrist, Nadeem Center
Hans Dahlgren, Swedish vice foreign minister

Announcer:

Welcome to tonight´s Kalla Fakta (Cold Facts).

Sweden is known as one of the world´s leading advocates of human rights, swift to condemn torture and summary trials. But tonight we can reveal that Sweden is itself abusing human rights in the worldwide terrorist hunt that has been going on since the 11th September 2001. Foreign masked agents have been allowed to strip, degrade and arrest suspects in Sweden , at Bromma airport. And take them to a country where they were to be tortured.

To expel someone to a country where he or she risks torture or inhuman treatment is incompatible with both international conventions and Swedish law. Yet, that was just what Sweden did when its government in December 2001 expelled Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed Al Zery to Egypten. An expulsion that not only was done in a very remarkable manner, but also was based on several incorrect pieces of information.

Speaker: Barely an hour before the airport closes for the night 18th December 2001, a small, very special jet plane lands at Bromma in Stockholm. Two civilian police cars are let in through the gate by the policewoman who guards it. In one of them is Muhammed Al Zery, 33 years, in the other Ahmed Agiza , 39 years.

Kalla Fakta has spoken with all we have found who were at Bromma that night. No one dares come forward publicly, but some have told what they saw, under the condition that they remain absolutely anonymous.

In a room, a group of men from the newly arrived plane, in plain clothes, are waiting. They have their faces hooded.

The two prisoners have their clothes cut from their bodies by scissors, without their hand- and footcuffs being loosened. The naked and chained prisoners have a suppository of unknown kind inserted into their anus, and diapers are put on them. They are forcibly dressed in dark overalls. Their hands and feet are chained to a specially designed harness. On the plane, both men are blindfolded and hooded.

When the plane takes off at 21.49 and sets course towards Egypt, Sweden is making a great deviation from a long tradition of safeguarding human rights.

Speaker: This is Hanan Attia. She and her husband Ahmed Agiza fled from Egypt to Pakistan and Iran after he had for many years been persecuted in Egypt for his engagement in islamistic movements.

Hanan Attia: Even hear in the news, must leave home. Because its like a blacklist, names in it. Difficult to live like that. And with children, more difficult. Two easy to move, children you must have stable life.

Speaker: Today, they have 5 children, one of them , little Kinana, was born here in Karlstad. The family had been fugitives for many years before they came to Sweden in September 2000.

Hanan Attia:I came here and feel trustful and I I don't want a lot from the world, I want a safe place to grown up children in good environment to be benefit person.

Live: Bye, Mum.

Speaker: The other man who was brought to Bromma, Muhammed Al Zery, an acquaintance of Agiza´s, came to Sweden in August 1999.

Kjell Jönsson: He had to flee Egypt in 1991 after having been harassed and tortured. So, he left Egypt illegally, and it was a matter of course to him that he wanted to come to Sweden to live in freedom.

Speaker: The Swedish Migration Board judged in both cases that the men needed protection, and should be granted asylum in Sweden.
But the Swedish Security police, called Säpo, was of the opinion that both were suspected terrorists who should be handed over to Egypt.

Speaker: With its pyramids, its history of many thousands of years, and sea and diving resorts , Egypt is a popular tourist country.

But Egypt is also a police state, where the people is held in an iron grip with the help of "emergency" laws.

A country where militant islamistic groups have perpetrated several terror attacks - but where also peaceful regime critics are classed as terrorists by the regime, in order to crush all political opposition.

Speaker: Here in the Nadim centre, doctors have attented to thousands of torture victims in the last years.

Susan Fayeed: Torture is very widespread in police stations and state security detention places. Electricity is used unfortunately widely. It is used routinely, and sometimes for punishment, for political or oppositional people, and sometime just to compliment for third partner."

Julia Hall: Egypt is a country that has been critizised by many organisations including UN, for using torture as a means to affect state policy.

Speaker: A judgment that is shared by the Swedish government: "Reports of police brutality, maltreatment and torture in police jails and prisons are common, and seem to be well founded in many cases. "

Julia Hall: Sweden has signed and ratified numerous UN-treaties that prohibit torture, including the convention against torture which has an express provision stating that states must not send people back to places where they would be in danger of torture.

Thomas Hammarberg: So it was an established practice that people would not be sent back to Egypt when they had this background, as it was very likely that they would be subjected to torture during interrogations.

Speaker: Sweden was in a dilemma. But it was prepared to go very far to get rid of these men.

Gun-Britt Andersson, then state secretary at the Foreign office, obtained a unique guarantee from Egypt that would untie the knot.

Gun-Britt Andersson: It guarantees that they will not be treated in a way that is contrary to international conventions, the Convention against torture and the European convention on human rights. Moreover, we were granted a follow-up possibility through visiting the prisoners.

Ahmed Omar Abo El Seoud: It certainly is considered in high appreciation and it is a model. We consider it a model that can be copied and taken as a guide on the level of international cooperation. Which is what we aspire to and invite to and demand on the level of different international speheres. This is an implementation of the basis of international law.

Speaker: According to Säpo, the two men are leading terrorists, but all Säpo´s information on the men is secret, also to the accused and their lawyers. That is out of consideration for relations with the foreign intelligence agencies that have supplied the information about them.

Arne Andersson: On the whole, there is no ground for us to believe anything else than that this is correct. We have a great trust between security agencies, and if we get information, we can mostly trust it.

Gun-Britt Andersson: Concerning Agiza, he is a wellknown figure, and there are reports on him in British press. And he was one of the leading figures in Islamic Jihad. Long ago, but since then these movements have splintered, and he was a member of those who were accused of the murder of presiden Sadat, I think.
Q:Suspected of Sadat?_
He was convicted in his absence.
Q:The murder of Sadat?_
I don´t want to be precise on that.
It wasn´t our business to investigate these things, but he was a very leading figure in Egypt then . Many years ago.
Q: How do we know that?
This is confirmed from all quarters.

Speaker: But much of the information that the Foreign Office and Säpo have are wrong, Agiza is not convicted of the murder of president Sadat, not even a suspect. Säpo thinks that Al Zery is convicted of crimes. That is incorrect. Agiza is said to have contacts high up in Al Qaida, and it is correct
that he knows Ayman Al Zawahiri, today known as Usama Bin Laden´s second in command. These two were both active in the Egyptian opposition in the beginning of the nineties, and met during Agiza´s exile in Pakistan in the middle of the nineties. But Säpo doesn´t have any reports of later contacts between them. And Agiza has several times publicly denounced Al Zawahiri and his ideology of violence. Agiza is convicted. He was convicted in his absence in 1999, together with 106 others, by a military court in Cairo for membership in Talal al-Fatah, an illegal organisation. The proceedings took 20 minutes. Neither the Egyptian security police nor Swedish Säpo have been able to produce any information pointing to Al Zery as a leading member of the same organization.

Kjell Jönsson, lawyer to Mohammed Al Zery: I think that this is….. It is my firm conviction that this is a miscarriage of justice. And we were never allowed to take part oft the foundations for these accusations, and also not a chance to meet then.

Speaker: A quarter to twelve on 18th December 2001, Prime minister Göran Persson and the rest of the government sit down to an extraordinary meeting. With the suspicions of terrorist activities and the Egyptian information as a foundation, they make the decision to expel Mohammed Al Zery and Ahmed Agiza. That decision takes about one minute. Another 48 points on the agenda are ushered through before it is time for lunch.
The Migration Board officer charged with the matter goes to the Post office himself to mail the decisions in a registered letter to the extradited men´s lawyers soon after four o´clock. But Säpo is in a state of readiness, and picks up the decision at the Foreign Office .

At 16.48 Ahmed Agiza is apprehended in Karlstad, on the way home from a course in Swedish. A few minutes later, Säpo arrests Al Zery in a shop in Stockholm.

Kjell Jönsson: On Tuesday the 18th, I had a telephone interview with my client, when I suddenly heard someone say: -Put the receiver down. Then, the connection was interrupted.

Speaker: Kjell Jönsson immediately calls the Foreign Office to check what has happened. But those who handle the decision have left the receiver off on purpose, and all others are on a Christmas party. Those he finally get hold of say that they know nothing. The men are already on their way to Bromma airport, but no one wants to to tell that to their legal counsels.
When the letters from the Foreign office reach the lawyers two days later, the men are since long in the custody of the State Security in Cairo.

Kjell Jönsson: -Yes, to me it´s all rather clear. I had already told the government that if , contrary to all expectation, the government would take a decision of expulsion to Egypt , I would go to the European court of Human rights with a complaint against Sweden, because there was an obvious risk that Al Zery would be subjected to torture. And that proceedings in Egypt can be completely illegal.

Gun-Britt Andersson: It was estimated that this would work ...... and it worked.

Thomas Hammarberg: That was a breach of trend and practice, and it also was in Europe. And it was used in other countries as an argument for.... as Sweden was so particular about respecting Human rights, and we had taken this decision of sending these two Egyptians back, then it was possible for other countries also, so in UN´s Refugee Commissariat this Swedish decision was regarded as serious , because it opened the dam so to speak, so it was an important decision. Not only in Sweden, but also in other parts of Europe.

STUDIO: But why on Earth would Sweden want to risk its good reputation, and accept that two men are flown from Sweden hanging manacled and hooded in an aircraft?
Why was this so important to the Government?
We are back soon.

///// Commercial Break /////

STUDIO:
Welcome back to Kalla Fakta.

Two men are swiftly an brutally expulsed from Sweden to Egypt. Late at night, they are flown out, hanging in special harnesses from the interior of a mystical aircraft. To a country that is known to torture its prisoners.
The question is why Sweden in this way suddenly abandons its principles concerning human rights? Why was this expulsion so important that the Government, instead of complying with international conventions, made a hasty, makeshift special agreement with Egypt?
We can tonight reveal that it was a foreign intelligence agency that abducted the two men out of Sweden. Masked US agents were allowed to operate on Swedish territory.
A few months after the attack on World Trade Center, Sweden accepted to become a pawn in the United States´ worldwide manhunt.

Julia Hall: We don't have any information about who in particular might have applied pressure to the Swedish government. What we do know is that the overall atmosphere, post september 11th has driven many governments, long interested in human rights, to do things that have in fact violated human rights.This is particulary disturbing to us.

Speaker: The USA have, both before and after 11 September, systematically kidnapped people all over the world, and handed them over to loyal security agencies in countries like Egypt, Syria and Jordania. The phenomenon is called Extraordinary Rendition.

George Tenet: I´ve testified there were over 70 renditions. But renditions in and of themselves doesn´t stop this.

Julia Hall: The key feature of extraordinary rendition is that there is virtually no opportunity for the suspect, him or herself, to challenge it, or to have any process, to see whether or not its legal, that's why we call it extraordinary rendition.

Speaker: People are taken to countries where they can be locked up for undefined time , or be interrogated with methods that would be unacceptable in a state ruled by law. Torture is no exception. A couple of examples:

24 year old Muhammad Saad Iqbal, was in November 2001 taken in chains on board a civilian aircraft in Djakarta. A few hours later, he was in Egypt. His further fate is unknown.
In June 2002, the German citizen Mohammad Zammar, was taken by
CIA in Morocco and was flown to Syria, where he is kept imprisoned to this day.
The Canadian citizen Maher Arar was arrested on 26th September 2003 in
New York, on his way home to Montreal. He was turned over to the Syrian security service. He was interrogated and tortured for ten months, before he was released.

Could it be that a US intelligence agency has also been involved in the expulsion of Agiza and Al Zery? The last traces of the two men are found at Bromma.

Sven-Olof Rosén: Here are all the bookings. YES! From 2000 to 2001, that should be the one.

Speaker: Swedish Säpo had booked a plane through Executive Air at Bromma.

Sven-Olof Rosén: Then there is a note: Flight booking cancelled 18th December 21.45. It appears here that the crew of North flying, on their way here, over the radio had heard that an Egyptian jet had collected the passengers already on the night of 18th December. We had no idea of that.

Speaker: So, quite another plane has picked up the two men. But Säpo won´t give any details.

Arne Andersson: What type it was and where it came from, I can´t say.
Q:Why?
Arne Andersson: That could disturb our relations with another service, and it could also affect the foreign relations of Sweden. As a nation.

Speaker: But Kalla Fakta can now disclose that it was an American plane. A Gulfstream 5, a very exclusive small private jet. The Bromma plane had the registration N379P , and proved to be owned by an anonymous company on the East coast of USA.

Mary Ellen McGuiness: That was our aircraft. You come to the right office.

Speaker: We call and want to hire the aircraft, but get the answer that it only flies for the US government.

Mary Ellen McGuiness: That is correct. We only lease through the US government, we are on a long term lease with them. Let me see if I find someone call you back.

Speaker: After 15 minutes, our phone rings again. This time from Stockholm.

Mikael Lundström: Hello, my name is Mikael Lundström, I work with the Security police, I call because you have been in contact with US authorities, concerning a certain person.
Q:OK. My question is then, do you work for a Government authority?
Why do you ask? If I put it like this, we have been contacted by our US cooperation partners in on this matter.

Q: We have been in contact with the owners of the plane. And a colleague of yours calls and says: US authorities.
Arne Andersson: I still can't neither confirm nor deny your information, that it´s right or wrong, but I can say as much that this was an international cooperation. That´s what it was. And it was cheap for the taxpayers.
Q: Very cheap?
Arne Andersson: Cheaper than normal.

Speaker: Säpo confirms that a foreign security agency has been at Bromma, but won´t say more. But Kalla Fakta can reveal that it was 6-8 Americans who handled the prisoners at Bromma, and that the plane is an instrument in the international manhunt conducted by the United States.
Two months earlier, the Jeminite student Jamil Gasim was picked up in the same way in Karachi in Pakistan, and flown in chains to Amman in Jordania. Masood Anwar, a reporter of The News in Karachi , wrote about the incident a few days later:

Masood Anwar: My sources were eyewitnesses, they belong from firebrigade. They have seen the entire drama, They told me all the persons wearing masks. The Entire episode vas operated by foreigners. They were from US. They saw that the tailnumber was N379P.

Speaker: N379P. The same plane that transported Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed Al Zery from Bromma to Cairo.

Kalla Fakta has charted the plane and its owners. It´s quite clear that it´s not an ordinary rental aircraft. It works on classified contracts for the US Department of Defense, and moves frequently between the continents. It has exclusive landing permits on US air bases all over the World, like Wake atoll in the Pacific, and Guantanamo on Cuba. The plane is a frequent guest there.

Thomas Hammarberg: Yes, it´s what .... One has had the feeling all the time that there has been a strong US element in this whole business. There was a strong pressure from Washington during this autumn. On
governments who might have had people on their lists. But one thing we
have really learnt during this period. That is that the US´ security
service´s list on suspected people may not be taken as evidence.

STUDIO: Without being able to refer to any proof of committed crime, Sweden expels two men to Egypt, a country that is known to torture political prisoners. And it was this agreement that made it possible to circumvent both Swedish law and the Convention on Human Rights. A guarantee where Egypt promises that the two men are to be given a humane treatment and have a fair trail. Did they get that - what happened to Agiza and Al Zery. We went to Egypt to find out.

Speaker: When the American plane had landed in Cairo, the two prisoners are turned over to the Egyptian State security service. During the following five weeks´ interrogations, the Swedish government doesn´t know where they are. It doesn´t even ask.

Sven Linder: What do you think had happened if I had come rushing in after four or five days and demanded to see those people?
It had been to signal from the start that we don´t trust you Egyptians.

Speaker: This is the Swedish embassy in Cairo. It is here the responsibility lies to control that the guarantee agreement is adhered to.

Live: -We are going to Masra Tora prison, to see Ahmed Agiza.
Q:How long will you be there?
For about an hour.

Speaker: Every month for two years time, the embassy has paid a visit to the prisoners. But the embassy´s reports show that the visits take place in the prison director´s office, often with personnel from Egypt´s security service present, who take notes of what the prisoners have dared to say. And the men have never been examined by an independent doctor.

Sven Linder: The only thing you can assume, as I see it, as an observer who is neither a psychologist nor with a medical degree, but still with a certain life experience, that is to to what extent a person´s pattern of behaviour is normal under the circumstances.

Gun-Britt Andersson, former state secretary, the Foreign office: I hope and believe that they haven´t been tortured.

Sven Linder: I can be very clear on that point. My estimate is that they have fulfilled their commitments as they were supposed to under this agreement.

Speaker: We meet Agiza´s mother Hamida Shalaby, who every other week sees her son in prison, under less supervised conditions. She knows what has happened before the ambassador´s visits.

Hamida Shalaby: A day before they tell him tomorrow the ambassador is coming. Don't Speak! If you speak you will lay on the electric mattress.

Speaker: In spite of the threats, they took the chance already at the ambassador´s first visit, in January 2002.
Kalla fakta can today reveal that it appears already in the first reports to the Foreign Office that the guarantee had been broken. The men then tell that they are forced to wear a blindfold at all times, that they are not allowed to sleep, that their families are threatened, about beatings and maltreatment. All of it testimony that the Swedish government immediately puts a stamp of secrecy on.

Julia Hall: I mean, Im sorry I´ve just never seen the excerpted passage before I only have the one they haven´t taken out, so I´m a little struck by it.
Q: why?
Because everything that they told him amounts to torture and ill treatment. The only conclusion I can draw from that is that the Swedish government did not want to admit publicly that the men had been tortured or ill treated upon return. To do so would mean in fact that they had violated the torture principle.

Speaker: Friday prayer outside the Al Azhar mosque in Cairo. For two weeks, we have on location sought permission to see the imprisoned Ahmed Agiza. But the Egyptian Security service dawdles.

At last, we are granted permission to go to Tora prison, an enormous complex on the outskirts of Cairo, covering several blocks. With a large number of security police on our heels, we are brought to the door of Agiza´s cell block, but that is as far as we go. We are not permitted to go in, there is no interview.

Speaker: The man the security police wants us to interview is Muhammed Al Zery, who was released from prison in October,and is said to be a free man. But he is not permitted to leave his native village without permission. The meeting is arranged by the security service´s management, and in the room are four officers whom we are not allowed to show in the picture. The highest ranking decides when the camera should be on and when not....and what questions we can put.

Live: Without recording!
Without recording!
Not recored now?
No!

Q:But he will tell me some questions to ask?
Yes!
OK!
Q: Treated well in prison?

Mohammed Al Zery: Yes. According to agreement there was good treatment, in that there was a lawyer, there was family visit, there was a monthly visit by the Swedish Embassy, throughout the trial and review by General Prosecution until it was proven that there was nothing..

Kjell Jönsson: What can Al Zery say in a situation like this? It´s evident that he is speaking under coercion.

Speaker: But Agiza´s mother can tell another story.

Hamida Shalaby: The mattress had electricity. The mattress. He would lay on it - like this - and his arms in chains on both sides and his legs in chains too. When they connected to the electricity, his body would rise up and then fall down and this up and down would go on until they unplugged electricity.
F: How many times did they use electrical torture?
Four times. Four times with the mattress, but on the chair; every day.
Yes, from 19 December to 20 February.

Speaker: The reports about torture also made Al Zery´s attorney Kjell Jönsson try to seek more information on location in Cairo.

Kjell Jönsson: This information, that they have been tortured is now confirmed. It is about very painful torture. They fasten electrodes to the most sensitive parts of the body. That is, genitals, breast nipples, tongue, ear lobes, underarms.
There are physicians present to judge how much torture, how much electricity, the prisoners can take. Afterwards the exposed parts are anointed, so that there won´t be marks and scars, and cold water is poured to stop blood clots.

Sven Linder: I was beginning to wonder if he was trying to signal something to me after all. And then I simply asked him to take his clothes
off. And then he started to do that. There were only men present. I simply wanted him to show himself. And when he had proceeded halfway he said: There are no marks on my body. And then I stopped the procedure.
Q: Could it be electrical torture he meant, it leaves no marks.
Sven Linder: Well, again, we are moving in a theoretical sphere.... I don´t think so, but of course it could be that way.

Hamida Shalaby: They would electrocute in a group. Each one would scream Ahh Ahha, because of electricity. So they make them hear each other. That would scream and this one would hear him, and then he would scream and he would hear him. They wear out their nerves until its their turn. That is the electricity bit. This electricity was daily. After that they threatened him…

Speaker: Kalla Fakta has taken part of original documents which support the testimonies, and which prove that the two men have been systematically tortured, with electricity, blows and kicks.
On at least four occasions, Swedish authorities have received
information through different channels from the men about what they have
been subjected to.

Speaker: All Hamida has left is her son´s cut up clothes after he was arrested in Sweden.

Live: Those who took him cut up his clothes.....

Hanan Attia: Yes, yes it´s his clothes yes.
F: It is Ahmed´s clothes?
Yes yes … yes it´s his clothes yes. Yes his… yes. Ja det är Ahmeds kläder
What can I say

Speaker: The Government's decision on 18th December 2001 also concerns Hanan and the five children .They can be expelled any day.

Susan Fayeed: These children are kids of a suspected terrorist, of course they may be vulnerable for at least investigations. If not more. And especially his wife

Live: Girl with bag

Susan Fayeed: We know here I have met a wife of a terrorist, suspected terrorist, I don't know he is or not. And she was tortured and she was obliged to write a paper that her husband did so and so and so and it was a false paper.
What is guarantee that this lady will not pass in such experience here?

Speaker: Sweden´s guarantee did not only cover the treatment of the prisoners and their families. One of the central points were that they should be awarded new and fair trials. .But in the beginning of May Agiza was sentenced again to 25 years imprisonment by another military tribunal.

Hafes Abu Seada: A military trial is a unfair trial. We asked for three witnesses to come, and refused, and we asked to … to send Ahmed Agiza to the medicine… to bring a certificate about torture. But refused.

Speaker: According to the agreement between Sweden and Egypt , the Swedish embassy was to be allowed to monitor the trial. But it was not allowed in two out of three days.

Hafes Abu Seada: I told you they refused to give them permission to enter the court. The court! To cross the door. There is no possibilities at all for the Swedish government to influence or to affect or to make anything. They don't care about this agreement.

STUDIO: Regeringen har alltså hela tiden hävdat att egypten har hållit avtalet och bahandlat männen korrekt. Men nu efter att Kalla fakta har börjat gräva i den här historien har regeringen svängt.

///// Commercial Break /////

STUDIO: Welcome back to Kalla Fakta , which tonight reveals how Sweden has taken part in a United States intelligence agency´s hunt for suspected terrorists, in a manner contrary to all conventions on human rights. The Swedish Government has for two and a half years maintained that the two men that were taken out of the country to Egypt have had a correct treatment, that Egypt has not broken its promise.
But now, since Ahmed Agiza, again has faced trial in a military court in Egypt, and Kalla Fakta has been able to show that they have been tortured, the Government has made an about turn.

Hans Dahlgren: This is so ominous that that we have prepared a visit to Cairo, on a high political level from the Swedish side, to take up this question with representatives of the Egyptian Security service. And of the Egyptian government.

One of the four elements in the guarantee was a fair trial. And we do not think that the trial a few weeks ago lived up to that.

Q: So, the agreement is broken, in your view?

Hans Dahlgren: We do not think that the Egyptian government has lived up to the agreement, this guarantee, in that part. And we will demand a new trial that meets the demands for a fair trial.

If this has happened, to the extent that you show here, the full responsibility lies with the Egyptian government. It is unacceptable to treat people in this manner. And that is exactly why the Swedish government is eager to have a definite promise from the representatives of the Egyptian government…

Q: But it was Sweden who expelled them…

Hans Dahlgren: It was Sweden who expelled them , but it is not Sweden who has treated any prisoners in this manner, but in that case the Egyptian government. And exactly because of this information and similar reports that has reached us, and which we are taking with the utmost seriousness, we will speak up about this on a very high level in Cairo.

Kjell Jönsson: It is depressing if the Swedish government says that, because it is absolutely forbidden according to international law to repatriate a person who risks being subjected to torture, and naturally, the Swedish government has a full responsibility for this .

Julia Hall: The men were tortured and ill treated upon return, the Swedish government should be held accountable for returning the men.

Thomas Hammarberg: Yes, you may wonder what the US government has to do with this in the first place. But of course, this illustrates the role and the way of acting the US government chose, not at least during the autumn of 2001, when they very actively put pressure on various governments in matters like this.

Julia Hall: I think that after September 11th numerous governments were under pressure in a way that led them to violate their human rights obligations. Sweden is an emblematic case of this because a long time promotor of human rights and the fact that they would succumb to such pressure to the expense of human rights is particularly disturbing.

Q: How will would you define the cooperation that some call pressure from the USA, as wishes or as demands?
Hans Dahlgren: I have no comments on whether there have been wishes or demands from the American side. I have no information about this, and cannot comment on it.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Swedish TV4 Kalla Fakta Program: "The Broken Promise", Part II
(English Transcript) Monday, 24th May, 2004

Participants:
Paul Forell, police inspector
Hans Dahlgren, Swedish vice foreign minister
Arne Andersson, Swedish Security Police, Säpo, responsible for the expulsion
Diaa Rashwan, expert on islamistic movements, head of the research institute Al-Ahram
Kjell Jönsson, Mohammed Al Zery´s Swedish lawyer
Hanan Attia, wife of Ahmed Agiza
Anders Järliden, friend of the family, head of the environment office,
Storfors municipality
Bo Jonasson, Hanan Attia's lawyer
Julia Hall, Counsel in the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch

At 16.48 on December 18th 2001, Ahmed Agiza is picked up by the police on his way home from a course in Swedish in the city of Karlstad, western Sweden. A few minutes later Säpo, the Swedish security police, arrest Muhammad Al Zery in a shop in Stockholm. They are taken into waiting cars and driven towards Bromma airport in Stockholm. So far, this is a seemingly all-Swedish police action.

But the picture soon changes.

Our program Kalla fakta´s (Cold facts) reporters have spoken with many sources who were present at Bromma airport on the night of 18th December. All want to be anonymous – all except one who now dares to come forward and tell what he saw.

Part I: The Key Witness

VO: Well, it all started with the colleagues from SÄK ( Säpo, the Security police) calling and ask if we can help…with our localities etcetera, because two arrested men, suspected of terrorism, are on their way in. And of course we oblige and help our colleagues.

Speaker: Paul Forell, a policeman with 25 years professional experience, is a key witness to the incident. He is stationed at Bromma airport, and was on duty this very night.

Paul Forell: Well, after a while came the Security police, my colleagues, by our entrance door here, and after another five, ten minutes came two American colleagues, in civilian suits, and we stood there for a while, talking.

Speaker: The Americans in plain clothes suits are about 35 years, by rough estimate. They come through the entrance, that faces the parking space. They introduce themselves with Christian names, and Paul Forell´s memory picture is that they are from the American embassy. Together, the men wait for the expected transport –it takes about 20 minutes.

Speaker: The Security police´s cars drive up to gate K at Bromma. They are let in and conducted to the Police station by the airport´s security officer.

Paul Forell: Well, they were parked just outside here. Just outside, and that´s a question of just a couple of metres away. That´s where they put their vehicles, just behind our police car. Well, then came this party in here, with the arrested men, into the station, and everything went very fast. The arrested men were dressed in their own clothes, if I don´t remember all wrong. Of course they were…they had handcuffs and footcuffs on.

Q: Who took the arrested men in?
Paul Forell: Americans…The Americans. The Swedish policemen stayed behind in the outer, public premises. They were three-four men to each of the arrested, and as far as I know they were normally dressed, that is jeans, and…shirt, and then they had hoods on. The Americans had hoods on when they came. I showed them in, briefly. And as I have understood, the arrested men had their clothes changed in the interior of our localities.

Speaker: So, in the little police station are now an interpreter and about eight American agents in the changing-rooms in the interior, plus another two, the ones in suits, in the office room. There are also a number of policemen from Säpo, and another few from the ordinary police, and an interpreter. Plus Paul Forell, the only one in uniform.

Paul Forell: Well, my first thought here....what is this? That was my first thought, I think, and the next was, I suppose, that these must be very dangerous men they have arrested, so I kept myself a bit in the background. There was hardly room for me in my own station.

Speaker: Paul Forell stands in the office room , and from there he can´t see or hear what happens in the changing-room, but other sources Kalla fakta´s reporters have been in contact with tell:

The arrested men are placed here, in the police station´s changing-room. Foot- and handcuffs are still in place when their clothes are cut apart. When the men are naked, suppositories of an unknown kind are inserted into their anuses–one wittness concludes that it is a sedatory. The men have diapers put on them, and then dark overalls, blindfold and a hood over the head.

Q: Who were with the arrested men in the changing-rooms?
Paul Forell: Well, as I understood it, they were Americans, those with hoods on.

Q: Who were in command?
Paul Forell: As far as I can remember, it was someone among the guys who wore masks. They were very professionl in their way of acting, and if you´d compare with anything it would be the National action force (Swedish elite police unit for special actions). They acted very deftly, swiftly and silently.

Q: They had done this before?
Paul Forell: Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

Q: What do the arrested men look like when they are taken out?
Paul Forell: When they left the changing-room, they had their clothes changed into overalls, and were still with handcuffs and footcuffs. They were taken out to the cars, and then away.

Speaker: The plane is some hundred metres away. It is a small jet–a Gulfstream 5, with register markings N379P – and, as Kalla fakta could reveal last week, it is flying for the US Department of Defense. One of the prisoners is placed lying on the floor with hands and feet cuffed together behind his back. The other is strapped fast in the cabin, with his hands over his head. The two arrested Egyptians, about eight American agents and two Swedish police from Säpo take off from Bromma at 21.49.

Paul Forell: Well, after that my Swedish colleagues and the two Americans in suits are still here. As I recall it, they were around for another five to ten minutes at the most, and then they left the station by the entrance door.

Speaker: At 03.00, the American plane lands in Cairo. The expulsion has been carried out. The two arrested men are taken to the Egyptian security service, where the interrogations start, the very same night. It will be five weeks before the Swedish embassy will come to visit them.

Paul Forell: There was one thing I kept thinking of a little, it is a little extraordinary that we had not been contacted about the plane, because all aircraft that come from non-Schengen countries are to contact the Police, and no one informed us that an American plane would land at Bromma.

Q: What conclusions do you draw from that?
Paul Forell: Well, that there was much too much hush…hush!

Part 2: Terrorist Background

Hans Dahlgren (radio interview at TV4, morning of May 18th, 2004): These are not just any Egyptians. The reason for their expulsion was their leading positions in an infamous terrorist organization.

Hans Dahlgren (interviewed in Kalla fakta, May 17th, 2004): They had held leading positions in a terrorist organization.

Speaker: They were not just any Egyptians. They were terrorist leaders. That is the Swedish governments´s message. The foundations for that came from the Swedish security police, Säpo, which in its turn had it from foreign intelligence services.

Arne Andersson: All in all, there was no ground for us to believe anything else than that this was correct. We have such a mutual trust within and between security services, that if we get information we can as a rule trust it.

Speaker: Kalla fakta can´t decide whether the men are terrorists or not. But it would be possible to examine Säpo´s basis for this assertion. But the details are secret, even to the accused themselves. Kalla fakta has, after several hour-long interviews with both the Swedish Foreign office and Säpo been informed about parts of the foundations. This shows, after a scrutiny, serious flaws. Ahmed Agiza is accused by the Foreign office of being mixed up in, possibly convicted of, the murder of the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981. But that is wrong. He is not convicted - not even suspected in this connection. But, he is convicted by a military court in Cairo for membership in the outlawed organization Tala´e Alfath, with connections to the Egyptian islamic Jihad.

By telephone:

Diaa Rashwan: I don´t think that they are right. Ahmed Agiza left the Egyptian Jihad for ever in 1993 after a crisis, a big crisis, about the leadership and the behaviour of the leadership in Egyptian Jihad.

Speaker: Diaa Rashwan is one of the Arab world´s leading experts on radical islamistic groups, och and head of the respected research institute Al–Ahram (Ah-hram) in Cairo.

By telephone:

Diaa Rashwan: For me and many other specialists we have no trust in judging people in military courts. It means that they don´t have the normal right to defend themselves. Countering the accusations, to be a leader of Tala´e Alfath, Ahmed Agiza was never a leader of Tala´e Alfath.

Speaker: Agiza is said to have had contacts high up in Al Qaida, and it is quite right that he knows Ayman Al Zawahiri, today the second man in the movement, next to Usama Bin Laden. Agiza and Al Zawahiri were active in radical islamistic movements in Egypt during the 80´s, and also met later under Agiza´s exile in Pakistan in the middle of the 90´s.

By telephone:

Diaa Rashwan: Sure they met. But to meet someone doesn´t mean that you agree with them or that you cooperate with them. As far as Ahmed Agiza is concerned, he might have had radical ideas all the time. But that doesn´t mean that you are a terrorist.

Speaker: Swedish Säpo doesn´t have any information about later contacts between Agiza and Zawahiri. And Agiza has on several occasions dissociated himself from Zawahiri and his ideology of violence.

Q: Then what about the other man – Mohammed Al Zery? Säpo says that he is convicted of crime in Egypt. That is also wrong, he was suspected of crime, but is now acquitted by Egyptian authorities and set at liberty.
Kjell Jönsson: If he had had a leading position in a terrorist organization, it is absolutely unthinkable that the Egyptian state would set him at liberty and declare him innocent. So, this is a fundamental misjudgment forn the government´s side.

Hans Dahlgren(interviewed in TV4 news programme, on May 18th, 2004): They were also suspected of preparing further terrorist actions, here on Swedish ground.

Hans Dahlgren(interviewed on radio may 18th, 2004): The suspicion that was clearly put to the Swedish government was that they were, on Swedish territory, preparing further terrorist acts.

Hans Dahlgren(from Kalla fakta, TV4, May 17th, 2004): They were suspected of preparing further terrorist attacks, here from Swedish territory.

Speaker: So, the Foreign office now says that the men were planning terror acts abroad with Sweden as their base, which is a serious crime according to Swedish law. But Säpo, who was investigating the two men for months, did not find any proof of criminal acitivites. Säpo didn´t even do a house search in their homes to seize material evidence, like Agiza´s computer. It is still in his flat in Karlstad.

Q: If the men were engaged in activities that threatened state and public security, why are they not brought to justice in Sweden?
Arne Andersson: Well, it doesn´t have to go as far as to criminal activites, it can be on the verge, sometimes. And this security risk, it, it was in their very background itself. Leading positions within terror organizations, connections to Al Qaida, and so on. They were suspected of preparing further terrorist attacks here, from Swedish territory.

Kjell Jönsson: This is an accusation, a very serious accusation of crime. If, at that time, when he was expelled, there was a reasonable suspicion of such criminiality, then he should be informed about the suspicion, and he should have a chance to defend himself. There is, I mean, no ground for this. To inspire fear is, I think not worthy of the Swedish government, as a method of defence when you are in a tight corner.

Speaker: On location in Cairo, Kalla fakta tries to get an interview with the imprisoned Ahmed Agiza. But the authorities refuse.

Live (in arabic): Close the wicket! Close the wicket!

Speak: But through Agiza´s mother we take home a message from him. He dictated it to her when she was last permitted to see him: "I am not part of any terrorist acitvity in any form. And my repudiation of Ayman Al Zawaheri and Usama Bin Laden is a well-known fact in islamistic circles." And he appeals to the Swedish government to let his family stay in Sweden. "…so that they can grow up and be brought up with Swedish values, principles and moral codes."

Part 3

Hanan Attia: I am afraid. If some of the children are a little bit late, I say OK, they picked them from the streeet. Why I live in that? Why my children must be afraid all the day? What I do? I don´t hurt anybody. I don´t believe I am in Sweden really.

Speaker: Two and a half years have lapsed since Hanan Attia last saw her husband, and the five children their father, Ahmed Agiza. In the family album, there are memories from for instance Iran, and the English-language school the children went to there.

Live: I remember this American lady (a teacher)

Speaker: The eldest son was only three when the family fled Egypt in 1991. The family has since led a roving life in Pakistan, Syria, and Iran, before it came to Sweden in 2000. The youngest daughter, Kinana, is born here in Karlstad.

Hanan Attia: I came here and feel trustful and I don´t want a lot from the world, I want a safe place to grown up children in good environment to be benefit person.

Live (at the cottage):
-I am the one who does the most fishing.
-Have you won any competition, Hussein?
-No, but I am the on who does the most fishing!

Speaker: We have chosen not to show the faces of the elder children, out of consideration for their daily life at school. Anders Järliden is one of the Swedes who actively support the family.

Anders Järliden: I see them every day, almost. I see children who are professional, I would almost say, to put their heads in the sand like ostrichs, to pretend for their own survival that the problems aren´t there. To manage daily life at school, and with friends, and generally. But under the surface they are
naturally very torn.

Speaker: A week ago, Kalla fakta could present information, from several pieces of witness evidence, and even from original documents, that Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed Al Zery have beeen subjected to systematical torture, by electricty among other things, in Egypt. Hanan and the children also run great risks if they are expelled.

Arne Andersson: They will not have a chance to support themselves, they can´t get work down there, they will be a sort of ostracized parias who will
forever have to fear being called to interrogations, with all that may mean.

Hanan Attia: We are at risk to be arrested, and it´s a great risk, not a small risk. And we are at risk to be tortured and at risk to be used against him, to put a pressure over him.

Speaker: The prerequisite-in the Government´s decision for the expulsion of the family is the so called guarantee against torture, and inhuman treatment and unfair trial – the guarantee that the Swedish government now, after Kalla fakta´s scrutiny, has admitted that Egypt has broken.

Hanan Attia: They saw what is going on with Ahmed, and they want to send us to the same situation, you understand? I don´t understand how they can protect us.

Arne Andersson There is only one consequence to draw, and that is to immediately see to it that the family is given a safe haven in Sweden.

Speaker: But to the UN committe on Human rights, which has examined the matter, the Swedish government has stated that the assurances given by Egypt are sufficient, and are being respected to the full.

Graphics:
"The Government has had no information which casts doubts over this conclusion."

(From the Swedish government´s letter to the UN 6th May 2003)

Speaker: But this is not correct. Already at the Swedish ambassador´s first visit in the prison, in January 2002, Agiza told how he and Al Zery had been blindfolded all the time, not been permitted to sleep, about beatings and maltreatment, during weeks of interrogation. Statements that the Swedish government immediately stamped Secret, but that Kalla fakta could reveal last week.

Julia Hall: Everything that they told him amounts to torture and ill treatment. The only conclusiosn I can draw from that is that the Swedish government did not want to admit publicly that the men had been tortured or ill treated upon return. To do so would mean in fact that they had violated the torture principle.

Speaker: Even in front of another UN body, the UN Committee against torture, Sweden chose not to give account of what the men had told.

Graphics:
"To the Swedish ambassador Ahmed Agiza conveyed no complaint about torture, or how he had been treated."

(From the Swedish government´s letter to UN 8th of March 2002.)

Bo Jonasson Yes, information has been withheld, vital information. Their (the authorities´) duty is to present all the material they have, and this they haven´t done.

Q: What is your view on that?
Bo Jonasson: That is serious, of course.

Kjell Jönsson: There was information from the start about physical violence, and about such treatment that is classified as inhuman and degrading, and about torture. Then they (the authorities) have gone on and deceived and lied to the Swedish controlling body, the Government´s constitutional committee, and then they have gone on internationally in front of UN´s committee against torture, and the committee that safeguards human rights. You can hardly believe that it´s true. That this can happen in Sweden.

Speaker: Kalla fakta has asked the Foreign office to comment on the criticism. The Foreign office has referred to its head of legal and judicial matters, Carl-Henrik Ehrenkrona, but says that he can´t comment on the matter, because he has been away for the weekend, and has not had access to the Foreign office´s documents.

Hanan Attia: If she will hear me as example, foreign minister, or migration minister, both of them is ladies. What they can feel if they have five children like me and live in that situation for that long of time. What they can feel? If they feel that their children be in danger to be tortured or to be lost everything.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Sweden Implicated in Egypt’s Abuse of Suspected Militant
Egypt Violated Diplomatic Promises of Fair Trial and No Torture for Terrorism Suspect

(New York, May 5, 2004)—The Egyptian military court conviction of accused terrorism suspect Ahmed Agiza, who was convicted on April 27, violated fair trial standards and failed to address his allegations that he was tortured, Human Rights Watch said today. Sweden expelled Agiza in 2001 after the Egyptian government promised that he would not be subject to torture or an unfair trial upon return.
The Swedish government expelled Agiza, an asylum seeker residing in Sweden with his wife and five children, in December 2001 following diplomatic assurances of fair treatment from the Egyptian authorities. Under international law, however, the absolute prohibition against torture includes the obligation not to send a person to a country where he or she is at risk of torture or ill-treatment.

“The Egyptian authorities failed to honor their diplomatic promises and their own human rights obligations under international law,” said Rachel Denber, acting executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division. “The Swedish government never should have returned Agiza to a country where torture is routine and where suspected militants simply don’t get fair trials. Sweden must now answer for its own complicity in these abuses.”

Although Agiza testified in the military court proceedings that he had been tortured in prison, the court permitted Agiza to be examined only by a prison doctor. Despite the fact that the prison doctor’s report indicated that Agiza had sustained physical injuries while in prison, the court denied the defense’s request for a forensic examination to establish how such injuries occurred and failed to commence an investigation into the torture allegations.

Agiza’s family members and Egyptian human rights organizations also alleged that he had been tortured and ill-treated.

Agiza also testified in court that after having filed a formal complaint about the torture he suffered in Mazra`t Tora prison, he was transferred to another prison, Abu Za’bal, where he was put in “punitive isolation.” He spent a total of 46 days in Abu Za’bal before being transferred back to Mazra`t Tora. At the April 20 military court hearing Agiza told his defense lawyers that an officer of the Egyptian security forces (mabahith) warned him after his hearing on April 13 not to mention his torture or ill-treatment again in court.

Agiza’s retrial in April – he had been convicted in absentia in 1999 – was conducted after a delay of more than two years following his forcible return to Egypt in December 2001. Moreover, the retrial was conducted not in an ordinary criminal court, but in a military court in which the proceedings do not meet international fair trial standards.

A Human Rights Watch representative attended all four sessions of Agiza’s trial and documented a catalogue of fair trial violations, including the rights to a speedy trial and to a trial by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal. The trial also violated Agiza’s right to defend himself, including by adequate access to counsel and with adequate time and facilities to prepare the defense, his right to call and examine witnesses, and his right to appeal the verdict to an independent tribunal.

Egyptian authorities relied upon secret evidence, which was not made available to Agiza’s lawyers. Defense lawyers were not permitted adequate access to the case file, nor were they granted sufficient time to obtain documents and prepare materials critical to the defense. The defendant was not permitted sufficient time to consult with his lawyers, and was sometimes granted consultations of only 10 to 15 minutes immediately before commencement of a hearing. The court also refused the defense’s request to allow witnesses to give testimony to counter the government’s charges.

Agiza was sentenced to 25 years in prison with hard labor for membership in an organization whose aim is to overthrow the Egyptian government by violent means. He was convicted on the same charge in absentia in 1999 while in exile in Sweden. His was the first-ever retrial in Egypt of a person convicted in absentia by a military court. Agiza does not have the right to challenge the decision, and only Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak can overturn the military court verdict.

Egypt has been under emergency rule for most of the past 35 years, and continuously since October 1981. Law enforcement officials routinely invoke their authority under the emergency law to arrest individuals at will and detain them without trial for prolonged periods. Officials also invoke their powers under emergency law to refer civilians to military or exceptional state security courts, and to prohibit strikes, demonstrations and public meetings.

The United Nations – including the Committee against Torture and the Special Rapporteur on Torture – as well as Egyptian and international human rights organizations have criticized Egypt for its continuing state of emergency, fair trial violations in military and state security courts, and widespread torture and ill-treatment of detainees.

Given this environment and the well-documented evidence of the routine use of torture in Egypt, the Swedish government has repeatedly stated that it expelled Agiza based on diplomatic assurances from the Egyptian authorities that he would not be subject to torture and would receive a fair trial. The Swedish government also agreed on a post-return arrangement with the Egyptian authorities in order to monitor Egypt’s compliance with those guarantees.

The Swedish government’s monitoring, however, has been severely deficient and fell far short of international prison-monitoring standards, including those employed by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Agiza was not visited by Swedish diplomats until five weeks after his return, despite the fact that torture and ill-treatment are most likely to occur within the first days of detention.

Swedish officials gave Egyptian prison authorities several days’ advance notice of the visits. Not a single visit with Agiza was conducted in private. Indeed, during some visits there were up to 10 other people in the room at the time, including the prison warden and the guards responsible for supervising Agiza. Swedish embassy staff members in Cairo were not trained to detect physical or psychological signs of torture.

With regard to the military court trial, Swedish diplomats were denied access to the first two hearings and were thus at a severe disadvantage in determining whether or not Egypt’s fair trial guarantees were respected and whether the court adequately addressed Agiza’s claims of torture. Moreover, the delay in their attendance limited the Swedish government’s ability to address Agiza’s torture allegations, and the numerous fair trial violations with its Egyptian counterparts as a function of the post- return monitoring arrangement meant to ensure that Egypt honored its diplomatic assurances.

“Agiza’s case highlights the inherent problem of relying on assurances from countries where torture and other human rights abuses are routine,” said Denber. “The Swedish authorities wanted to get rid of someone alleged to be involved in political violence and wrongly decided to accept Egypt’s promises. Egypt’s blatant failure to address its torture epidemic should have ruled out this route from the start.”

In the cases of Agiza and Mohammed al-Zari, who was expelled with Agiza from Sweden to Egypt in 2001, the U.N. Human Rights Committee as well as international and national human rights organizations have criticized Sweden for violating the prohibition against returning a person to a country where he or she is at risk of torture. Agiza has submitted an individual communication to the U.N. Committee against Torture, and al-Zari has submitted an application to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Both men are seeking remedies for the violation of being forcibly returned despite the clear risk of torture.