from Richard Neville .....

The revelations of a once secret 2006 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross on the use of torture and "cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment" on prisoners at Guantánamo and secret CIA jails came as a shock to many.

This is odd, because anyone with a keyboard, modem and half a brain, quickly discovered that in the panicky aftermath of 9/11, the West had forged a pact with the Devil. It was not only Dick Cheney who felt the call of the dark side - it was virtually the entire governing class of America, Britain and Australia.

Yes, even Australia, a former penal colony that started life as Britain's Guantanamo.

You might think this grim past would sharpen the desire of our institutions to root out injustice and comfort the afflicted. Well, we go through the motions. Australia signed the Convention against Torture (CAT) and, unlike the US, ratified it. But now we have trashed it. How come? Let's take a swift trip into the heart of darkness.

At 3am on October 2001, a bus bound for Karachi was boarded by Pakistani security heavies on the look-out for "suspicious foreigners". Two young Germans were dragged from their seats. When Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib interceded on their behalf, he too was taken into custody. According to Habib, he was hooded, shackled, dumped in a cell and roughed up. Eventually, he was taken to the Australian High Commission in Islamabad.  In his memoir, My Story, Habib insists that he met with a senior consular official, Alistair Adams. The Australian Government denies such a meeting took place. However, in 2007, The Australian newspaper tracked down Ibrahim Diab, one of the Germans removed from the bus. Diab briefly shared a cell with the Australian, and heard a policeman tell Habib he was being taken to the High Commission, and watched them depart. On his return, Habib showed Diab a business card provided by the consul.

Habib states he met Mr Adams several times while he was held in Pakistan, and that the diplomat was present when he was interrogated by US agents. Adams allegedly told him he would be sent to an Egyptian jail. The Government admits Habib was twice seen by an officer of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) who used the name Paul Stokes and once by an Australian Federal Police officer, Mark Briskey.

http://www.homepagedaily.com/Pages/article7178-the-torturers-apprentice.aspx