Senators seek Pentagon investigation of torture reports
Pressure mounted on the Defense Department after multiple US senators called for investigations into reports that US military interrogators worked with forces from the United Arab Emirates who are accused of torturing detainees in Yemen.
John Mccain, Republican Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the ranking Democrat, Jack Reed, called the reports “deeply disturbing”, AP wrote. The reports were revealed in an investigation Thursday. That same day, Mccain and Reed wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis asking him to conduct an immediate review of the reported abuse and what US forces knew.
“We are confident that you find these allegations as extremely troubling as we do,” The senators wrote to Mattis.
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, Vice Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, also called for an investigation and noted that support for the UAE forces could violate a law that forbids funding to known human rights violators.
“Reports of acts of torture by agents of a government that is supported by the United States, and the possibility that US military personnel may have been aware of it, should ring alarm bells at the Department of Defense,” Leahy said.
The report detailed a network of secret prisons across southern Yemen where hundreds are detained in the hunt for al-qaida terrorists and held without charges. American defense officials confirmed that US forces have interrogated some detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in, or knowledge of, human rights abuses.