Jordan Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Government denies HRW
allegations of torture
By Mahmoud Al Abed
AMMAN — A senior official on Tuesday dismissed as
“baseless” a report by a human rights group which alleged that security suspects
would face a “high risk of torture” if deported to Jordan.
Minister of Interior Awni Yarvas told The Jordan Times that the statement by the
Human Rights Watch (HRW) was “categorically incorrect,” stressing that the
rights of suspects are guaranteed by the Penal Procedure Code, while local and
international groups concerned with human rights “have always been welcome to
visit detention centres and talk directly to detainees.”
Quoted by Agence France-Presse, the US-based HRW said Tuesday that Britain will
break international law if it deports security suspect Omar Mahmoud Abu Omar,
also known as Abu Qatada, to Jordan due to a high risk of torture.
The group also named Egypt and Algeria as countries suspected of exercising
torture against suspects under interrogation.
Abu Qatada is among 10 foreigners London has arrested and pledged to deport in a
crackdown on hardline Islamists after the deadly July 7 bombings in London.
Britain and Jordan have signed a non-legally binding agreement that allows the
two countries to deport wanted suspects from one to the other without fear of
torture.
“The United Kingdom cannot deport security suspects to Jordan without violating
the international prohibition against sending persons to countries where they
face a serious risk of torture,” HRW said.
The rights group described the Aug. 10 memorandum of understanding between
Britain and Jordan as meaningless.
“There is still torture in Jordan, especially with regard to security suspects,”
Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division, was
quoted as saying in a statement.
“All the good reasons that prevented the UK from deporting people to Jordan
before Aug. 10 remain unchanged by this agreement,” he said.
Britain and Jordan are both signatories to the Convention against Torture and
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, which prohibits torture.
The interior minister said that international human right groups usually build
their reports on allegations made by people claiming their confessions were
extracted under torture.
“But these reports are not founded on solid facts, while the legal practices in
Jordan under the Penal Procedure Code prohibit torture” in harmony with the
international law, the official said.
According to Yarvas, a former judge himself, security suspects who cooperate
with their interrogators tend to allege during their trials that their
confessions were taken under duress.
The minister said that he learnt from his experience that such allegations are
made by defendants to send a message to their associates and groups that they
would not have confessed anything had they not been subject to torture.
The minister stressed that even if a defendant pleads guilty in front of a
Jordanian court, the norm is that judges insist on examining the evidence.
“For example, if someone confesses to possessing explosives, the court will want
the prosecutors to show that such prohibited materials were actually
confiscated.”
Meanwhile, Yarvas said that the prosecutor office at the State Security Court is
compiling the file of Abu Qatada in preparation for extraditing the 44-year-old
suspect, who was sentenced to life in absentia for plotting terror attacks on
Jordanian soil in 1998.