New Revelations About Detainee Abuse Cry for Need for Transparency and Accountability for Torture

December 7, 2009, Washington, DC—A cascade of events in the last two weeks all point to two critical needs: getting at the facts about torture of detainees in American custody; and implementing a process of accountability for those who ordered, designed, and authorized torture policy.

The Department of Justice must live up to President Obama's campaign promise of transparency.  Americans have a right to know what is in the five-year old Office of Professional Responsibility report about the ethical conduct of the DOJ lawyers who authored the "torture memos." Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the Senate last month that the OPR report would be released by the end of November, but as of this morning the report has still not been made public.  Releasing the OPR report is the first important step in establishing a record of what led our country to torture and restoring the rule of law. 

While President Obama remains determined to look forward rather than back, troubling news from the past eight years continues to leak out.  This morning, Seton Hall University released a report raising substantial questions about the reported "suicides" of three Guantanamo detainees in 2006, undermining the Department of Defense's official account of their deaths and suggesting the need for further investigation. 

Last week, DOJ came to the defense of "torture memo" author John Yoo in a lawsuit by Jose Padilla alleging he was tortured as a result of Yoo's legal advice.  In an amicus brief to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that didn't need to be filed, DOJ argued on Yoo's behalf that no government lawyer can be held accountable in court for legal advice given to the President, even when it results in torture. 

"Instead of releasing the OPR report, the Obama Department of Justice has gone out of its way to shield John Yoo from civil liability, citing its own still-unreleased internal ethics report as a path to accountability," said Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron.  "The latest revelations about detainee abuse at Guatanamo and Bagram are only further reasons why the Obama administration must promote transparency by releasing the OPR report and restore the rule of law by holding government officials accountable for torture."