3 U.S.-Detained Yemenis Freed, Rights Group Says

Three Yemeni nationals who say they were held captive for more than two years in secret U.S. detention facilities have been released in Yemen without facing charges related to terrorism, according to Amnesty International officials who have been working with the former detainees.

In a report released yesterday in London and in previous statements, Amnesty International cites the three detainees' cases as a window on what the organization believes is part of the covert CIA system designed to hide prisoners. Amnesty officials say they cannot be certain exactly where the detainees were held, but they contend, based on the captives' accounts, that the prisons were probably in Afghanistan, Djibouti and somewhere in Eastern Europe.

Muhammad Bashmilah, 38, and Salah Ali Qaru, 29 -- who were living in Indonesia when they were arrested in 2003 -- were released last week after a Yemeni judge convicted them of forging personal travel documents and sentenced them to time served in the U.S. facilities. Both men claimed they were tortured in a Jordanian prison before being transferred into U.S. custody.

Muhammad al-Assad, 43, was arrested in his longtime home of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in December 2003 and ended up in what Amnesty International officials believe was a CIA "black site" prison. He was released from a Yemeni prison on March 14.

Anne FitzGerald, senior adviser on research policy for Amnesty International, said the men have never been given information about why they were arrested or why they were being held secretly.

The men do not allege that their American captors abused or tortured them, but if they were held incommunicado after being shifted to different countries, as they claim, that practice could violate international laws regarding detentions. The men were not allowed contact with the International Committee of the Red Cross and did not have access to lawyers, and their families thought they had disappeared.

A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment. Mohammed Albasha, press officer for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington, said Tuesday that he was not able to confirm the specific cases identified by Amnesty International. In general, Albasha said, "the Yemeni government will not release any convicts unless they are found to be . . . not directly or indirectly involved with a terrorist organization."

Amnesty International is calling on the United States to stop shifting detainees to other countries outside of judicial norms and to cease holding detainees in secret facilities where human rights organizations are unable to have contact with them. In its 37-page report, the organization asks governments worldwide to ensure they are not parties to secret detention and to prevent their airspace from being used for such activity.

The American Civil Liberties Union last week urged the United Nations human rights investigative body to open an inquiry into the U.S. program, saying what the CIA calls "rendition" is in violation of federal and international law.

Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.