CIA 'violated human rights' - Afghan president

Afghan President Asraf Ghani has said the CIA's brutal interrogation programme "violated all accepted norms of human rights in the world".  He is among many world leaders condemning how the agency imprisoned and questioned al-Qaeda suspects.

A US Senate report on the programme has said the harsh methods did not lead to unique intelligence that foiled plots.   The report also concluded the agency misled politicians and public about the 2001-2007 programme. 

The CIA has defended its actions in the years after the 9/11 attacks on the US, saying they saved lives.

And President Barack Obama has said it was now time to move on, despite acknowledging some of the CIA's actions amounted to torture.

None of the countries where the prisons were located has been identified in the report, but several countries suspected to have hosted sites reacted strongly to the publication.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Mr Ghani, who became president in September, called the report "shocking".  "There is no justification for such acts and human torturing in the world."  He vowed to investigate how many Afghans had suffered abuse at US detention centres.

Germany's foreign minister also criticised US actions on Wednesday in the Bild newspaper, saying "what was then considered right and done in the fight against Islamist terrorism was unacceptable and a serious mistake".

"As a matter of international law, the US is legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice," Mr Emmerson said in a statement made from Geneva.

And Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said that the CIA's actions were criminal "and can never be justified".

Some Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee released a minority report, accusing the Senate report of having a "flawed analytical methodology", "inadequate objectivity" and "political considerations".  More at BBC

CIA interrogation report: Who knew what when?