Rights group names 38 allegedly held in secret

Human Rights Watch said the terrorism suspects are being held illegally by the CIA in overseas facilities.

By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON - A human-rights group Tuesday published the names of 38 people it believes have been locked up in secret overseas facilities and asked President Bush to disclose the identities and fates of all detainees the CIA has held since 2001.

Among those that Human Rights Watch suspects of being held by the CIA now or at one time is Khalid al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian allegedly picked up in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan in February 2004. Officials from the group say Al-Zawahiri is probably the son of Ayman al-Zawahiri, said to be second in command of Al-Qaida. Another on the list is Aafia Siddiqui, a woman who made the FBI's most-wanted list for her possible role in Al-Qaida plots to attack the United States.

The New York-based rights organization included those and other names in a Feb. 26 letter to Bush that was made public Tuesday. It also released a report titled "Ghost Prisoner: Two Years in Secret CIA Detention," in which it told the story of another terrorism suspect, Marwan Jabour, a Palestinian man who says he was tortured and held incommunicado for more than two years by the United States and Pakistan.

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