Extraordinary rendition for white-collar criminals? »

Opponents of the practice of extraordinary rendition are growing increasingly vocal about the case of Raymond Azar, a Lebanese construction contractor who was picked up by the FBI on allegations of bribery, shackled, blindfolded and flown to the United States for trial.

It’s a case that the Los Angeles Times referred to Saturday as the “first rendition under [President] Obama.”

In affidavits filed in federal court, Azar says he was denied food, placed in a freezing room and threatened with never seeing his family again unless he confessed to the charges, the Times reports.

The FBI denies only the claim that Azar was told he would never see his family again. The bureau says it followed “standard operating procedure” in bringing him to the United States.

Azar pleaded guilty last week in a US federal court to conspiracy to commit bribery, and faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Yet human rights groups and government watchdogs are growing increasingly alarmed by what they see as the adoption of “extraordinary rendition” practices to crimes that don’t involve terrorism.

Joanne Mariner, terrorism policy director at Human Rights Watch, called the case “bizarre” and told the Times: “He was treated like a high-security terrorist instead of someone accused of a relatively minor white-collar crime.”

Despite Azar’s guilty plea, the circumstances of his arrest and interrogation will likely lead observers to question the outcome of his trial. The Times reports that Azar signed documents he did not understand because he was “frightened for his immediate safety … and under the belief he would end up in the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib to be tortured,” according to his lawyers.

Read Full Story at rawstory.com »

108 Views Share Story 0 Comments Report