Extraordinary Rendition - "Erroneous Rendition"

"Erroneous Rendition"

An article published in the 5 December 2005, Washington Post reported that the CIA's Inspector General was investigating what it calls erroneous renditions. The term appears to refer to cases in which innocent people were subjected to extraordinary rendition.

Khalid El-Masri is the most well-known person who is believed to have been subjected to the process of "extraordinary rendition", as a result of mistaken identity. Laid Saidi, an Algerian detained and tortured along with El-Masri, was apprehended apparently because of a taped telephone conversation in which the word tirat, meaning "tires" in Arabic, was mistaken for the word tairat, meaning "airplanes".

The Post's anonymous sources say that the Inspector General is looking into a number of similar cases—possibly as many as thirty innocent men who were captured and transported through what has been called "erroneous renditions".

A 27 December 2005 story quotes anonymous CIA insiders claiming there have been 10 or fewer such erroneous renditions. It names the CIA's inspector general, John Helgerson, as the official responsible for the inquiry.

The AP story quotes Tom Malinowski, Washington office director of Human Rights Watch who said:

"I am glad the CIA is investigating the cases that they are aware of, but by definition you are not going to be aware of all such cases, when you have a process designed to avoid judicial safeguards."