Rumsfeld personally supervised torture, says Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch says it believes U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could be criminally liable for the torture of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 and 2003.

The universally respected international organization was commenting on an Army Inspector General's report which contains a sworn statement by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt that implicates Secretary Rumsfeld.

The report, obtained by Salon.com, was based on an investigation that was carried out in early 2005, and included two interviews with Rumsfeld. In the report Gen. Schmidt describes the defense secretary as being "personally involved" in the interrogation of detainee Mohammad al-Qahtani.

Human Rights Watch has urged the U.S. to name a special prosecutor to investigate the culpability of Rumsfeld and others in the al-Qahtani case.

"The question at this point is not whether Secretary Rumsfeld should resign, it's whether he should be indicted," said Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program director at Human Rights Watch. "General Schmidt's sworn statement suggests that Rumsfeld may have been perfectly aware of the abuses inflicted on al-Qahtani."
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