NEW YORK, Dec 6: The US Secretary of State mischaracterized the government’s ‘rendition’ of terrorist suspects to make it appear lawful, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

“Secretary Rice made extra-legal rendition sound like just another form of extradition,” said Tom Malinowski, Director of HRW, in a statement.

“In fact, it’s a form of kidnapping and ‘disappearing’ someone entirely outside the law.”

The New York-based watchdog noted that in remarks at the start of a five-day trip to Europe, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US government had not transported detainees to other countries ‘for the purpose’ of interrogation using torture, but she failed to mention that the United States has transported detainees to countries such as Egypt and Syria where it knows torture is commonplace. The Convention against Torture, to which the United States is a party, outlaws such a practice.

The HRW said that Secretary Rice also failed to address a central concern of European governments: that the CIA has allegedly held detainees in secret locations in Europe.

“Condi Rice can’t deny that secret prisons exist because they do,” said Malinowski.

“But she can’t say where they are because that would embarrass the United States and put the host countries in an impossible position — something the Bush administration should have thought of when it launched this short-sighted policy.”

On renditions, Secretary Rice merely cited historical precedents for suspects being rendered to the United States for prosecution, and suggested that legal methods for detaining and interrogating suspects were not always appropriate.

In fact, the US government has frequently resorted to extra-legal rendition to other countries as a means of interrogating detainees indefinitely without judicial interference.

The secretary of state also noted that ‘where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured’. But Human Rights Watch said that such assurances are ineffective and do not relieve the United States of its obligation to not send people to countries where they are likely to be tortured.

“No one honestly believes that assurances from countries like Egypt and Syria can be trusted,” said Malinowski.