From the Associated Press

HUMAN RIGHTS ACCUSATIONS

U.N. investigator accuses U.S. of abuses in anti-terrorism fight

GENEVA — A U.N. investigator accused the United States on Friday of human rights violations in its fight against terrorism, criticizing the use of military commissions to try civilians and interrogation practices.

It is “regretful that a number of important mechanisms for the protection of rights have been removed or obfuscated under law and practice since the events of September 11,” Martin Scheinin, of Finland, said in a report written after meeting with U.S. diplomats and justice and security officials.

The U.S. Embassy in Geneva called Scheinin’s criticisms were unfair and oversimplified.

Scheinin said the military tribunals “raise significant human rights concerns, including the jurisdiction and composition of military commissions, the potential use of evidence obtained by coercion, and the potential for the imposition of the death penalty.”

Scheinin denounced interrogation practices such as forcing prisoners into stress positions and exposing them to extreme temperatures, saying they amounted to torture or inhumane treatment illegal under international law.

U.S. officials have repeatedly denied torturing detainees./AP

ROCK, MEET HARD PLACE

Gitmo prisoner to transfer home

— where he says he was tortured

Jamil el-Banna has been locked up by the United States for nearly five years without being charged — arrested in Africa, allegedly tortured at a CIA “black site” in Afghanistan, then held at Guantanamo Bay — all because of faulty British intelligence, his defenders charge.

Now el-Banna had been cleared by the U.S. for transfer to his native Jordan, where he says he was tortured before becoming a political refugee in Britain in 1997.

His lawyers decried the move, charging that sending him back amounted to the U.S. outsourcing torture.

“We are going to block his rendition to Jordan,” said attorney Clive Stafford Smith. “To be sure, he would be out of (Guantanamo), but it would be from the frying pan into the fire.”

El-Banna is under indictment in Spain for allegedly joining a terrorist group and who admits associating with Islamic extremists but denies having anything to do with al-Qaida or any other terrorist activity./AP

MIXED RESULTS

Military: 8 U.S. deaths;

U.S., Iraqi officials tout gains

Al-ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq — Iraq’s prime minister and two top American officials highlighted gains in the fight against insurgents, hours before the military reported the deaths of eight U.S. troops Saturday.

One of those killed, a Marine, died in combat in Anbar province, once the site of some of the fiercest fighting in the country — and where the U.S. ambassador, the American commander in Iraq, and the Iraqi leader traveled Saturday.

The Sunni-dominated province has grown calmer in recent months with the flowering of a new alliance among Sunni tribal leaders, the Iraqi government and U.S. led forces, but peace continues to be elusive — as the death Saturday of the Marine demonstrated.

Elsewhere on Saturday, three U.S. soldiers were killed in Salahuddin Province, north of Baghdad, when an explosion hit their patrol; another died in a roadside bombing in south Baghdad./AP

ASYLUM GRANTED

Dutch give amnesty to 25,000

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Some 25,000 asylum-seekers whose applications for refuge were rejected will be allowed to stay, the newly installed Dutch government said Saturday, reversing the previous administration’s hardline immigration policy.

“The foreigners who will be granted a permit on the basis of this ruling must find a place in Dutch society,” the Cabinet said in a statement. “That means not only education and work, but also integration and housing.”

The amnesty will apply to asylum-seekers who arrived before April 1, 2001, and were found not to qualify but who remained in the country anyway.

“This is the end of a hopeless situation for many people,” said Edwin Huizing, director of the country’s main immigrant aid organization Vluchtelingenwerk, praising the decision. “They finally have a future to look forward to.”/AP

A STINGING DELAY

Swarm of bees grounds flight

LONDON — A thick cloud of bees was sucked into the engine of a passenger plane en route to Portugal, forcing the airline to abandon the trip and grounding passengers for 11 hours, a company executive said Saturday.

David Skillicorn, managing director of Palmair, said the swarm was spotted off Britain’s Bournemouth coast shortly before the Boeing 737 left on Thursday.

“The pilot experienced an engine surge about an hour into the flight,” Skillicorn said. “He returned to Bournemouth and we found what appeared to be a large number of bees smeared inside the engine.”

Around 200 passengers were delayed while the company carried out repairs and eventually replaced the aircraft, Skillicorn said./AP