Rights body calls for probe into secret CIA detention center

New York, Aug 2 (PTI) Physicians for Human Rights (P.H.R.) have called for a full trans-Atlantic investigation by US Congress and the British Parliament into "revelation" by Time magazine that the US covertly used Diego Garcia as a topsecret CIA detention center.

In a statement, P.H.R. also demanded that the International Committee of the Red Cross (I.C.R.C.) be given immediate access to all detainees that may still be held atDiego Garcia and other "black" site locations.

"The US and the UK must at last come clean about the scope of extraordinary rendition and secret detention as violation of American and British law, human rights standards, and the rules and regulations of NATO," Frank Donaghue, ChiefExecutive Officer of P.H.R., said.

"Both Congress and Parliament must set the record straight about what happened at Diego Garcia. P.H.R. knows from our twenty-one year history of documenting torture around the world that secret detention opens the floodgates totorture and other gross human rights abuses," he added.

The "disclosure" that Diego Garcia held CIA "ghost" detainees, such as Riduan Isamuddin, commonly known as "Hambali", shows that General Michael Hayden, Director of the CIA, provided false information to senior members of the British Government, the statement said. PTI DS