US Denies Red Cross Access to Detainees

The US has admitted for the first time that it has not given the Red Cross access to all detainees in its custody. The State Department's top legal adviser, John Bellinger, made the admission but declined to make any further comment.

Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, J. Bellinger stated that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had access to "absolutely everybody" held at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on suspicion of terrorism. But when asked by journalists if the organization had access to everybody held in similar circumstances elsewhere, he said: "No". He declined to explain further.

This revelation by a high-ranking US official is likely to increase suspicion that the CIA has been operating secret prisons outside international oversight.

The ICRC wants access to all foreign terror suspects held by the US in "undisclosed locations". It says there is no way of knowing whether detainees being held in secret are being tortured.

As has been reported, US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice said earlier that the US would change its policy on interrogation practices and prohibit maltreatment of detainees wherever they might be kept.

C. Rice said that all American interrogators, whether they worked in the US or abroad, were bound by international conventions banning cruel, inhuman and humiliating treatment of detainees.