CIA rendition: more than a quarter of countries ‘offered covert support’

Report finds at least 54 countries co-operated with global kidnap, detention and torture operation mounted after 9/11 attacks

• Ian Cobain
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 February 2013
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John Brennan, Barack Obama’s choice to head the CIA. The report’s release appears timed to coincide with his confirmation hearing. Photograph: Yuri Gripas/Reuters

The full extent of the CIA‘s extraordinary rendition programme has been laid bare with the publication of a report showing there is evidence that more than a quarter of the world’s governments covertly offered support.

A 213-page report compiled by the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), a New York-based human rights organisation, says that at least 54 countries co-operated with the global kidnap, detention and torture operation that was mounted after 9/11, many of them in Europe.

So widespread and extensive was the participation of governments across the world that it is now clear the CIA could not have operated its programme without their support, according to the OSJI.

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