Extraordinary Rendition
CIA program of extrajudicial transfer and detention of terror suspects
Extraordinary rendition is the practice of transferring individuals — often suspected terrorists — from one country to another outside the normal legal process, typically for the purpose of detention and interrogation in countries with less restrictive rules on torture. The CIA's rendition program expanded dramatically after September 11, 2001, though the practice predates the attacks.
The program involved CIA-operated or chartered aircraft flying detainees to "black sites" — secret prisons operated in cooperation with foreign intelligence services in countries including Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Thailand, Morocco, Egypt, and Syria. At these facilities, detainees were subjected to what the CIA euphemistically called "enhanced interrogation techniques," including waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, confinement in coffin-sized boxes, and simulated drowning.
For years, the U.S. government denied the existence of black sites and the rendition program. President Bush acknowledged the program in September 2006, confirming what human rights organizations and journalists had documented through flight records, satellite imagery, and testimony from released detainees.
The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA torture, completed in 2014 (with a 525-page executive summary released publicly), confirmed that the CIA's interrogation program was far more brutal than the agency had represented to Congress or the public. The report found that the CIA misled lawmakers about the program's effectiveness and scope, and that "enhanced interrogation techniques" did not produce unique intelligence that could not have been obtained through conventional methods.
Multiple individuals subjected to extraordinary rendition were later determined to be innocent. Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen, was kidnapped by the CIA in Macedonia, held for months at a black site in Afghanistan, and subjected to brutal treatment before being released without charge when the agency realized it had the wrong man. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in his favor; the U.S. courts dismissed his case on state secrets grounds.