Following Tuesday's long-awaited release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Bush-era CIA torture techniques, top United Nations officials on Wednesday called for the prosecution of all U.S. officials and CIA agents involved in authorizing and carrying out the enhanced interrogation techniques, reported The Associated Press.
Ben Emmerson, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, said the report showed "there was a clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration, which allowed to commit systematic crimes and gross violations of international human rights law."
"It is now time to take action," Emmerson continued in his statement. "The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today's report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes."
"The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorised at a high level within the US Government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability.
International law prohibits the granting of immunities to public officials who have engaged in acts of torture. This applies not only to the actual perpetrators but also to those senior officials within the US Government who devised, planned and authorised these crimes."
According to Emmerson and U.N. international law, the U.S. is "obliged to bring those responsible to justice."
"The UN Convention Against Torture and the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances require States to prosecute acts of torture and enforced disappearance where there is sufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction. States are not free to maintain or permit impunity for these grave crimes," Emmerson said.
While CIA agents who physically committed acts of torture should be individually prosecuted, the most severe penalties should be applied to those responsible for planning and authorizing the crimes - including the former Bush administration officials who admitted their involvement.
Because torture is a crime of universal jurisdiction, those responsible can be prosecuted "by any other country they may travel to," Emmerson remarked.
"However, the primary responsibility for bringing them to justice rests with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Attorney General," he concluded.
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, said that under international law, the U.S. has a "crystal clear" obligation to hold those responsible accountable.
"In all countries, if someone commits murder, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they commit rape or armed robbery, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they order, enable or commit torture - recognized as a serious international crime - they cannot simply be granted impunity because of political expediency," he said.
A Justice Department official speaking under the condition of anonymity said Wednesday that it does not plan on prosecuting anyone involved in the CIA program, claiming no new information was found that wasn't already considered in its previous investigation, reported AP.
"Our inquiry was limited to a determination of whether prosecutable offenses were committed," the official said. "Importantly, our investigation was not intended to answer the broader questions regarding the propriety of the examined conduct."
To this date, the only person to be prosecuted was the former CIA analyst, John Kiriakou, who blew the whistle on the use of interrogation tactics such as waterboarding. Kiriakou is currently serving a two and a half year sentence for disclosing classified information.
