Carter: US has abandoned 'basic principles of human rights'

Associated Press
Guardian Unlimited

Former US president Jimmy Carter last night told CNN the US tortured prisoners in violation of international law, following an assertion last week from George Bush that the US "does not torture".

The 2002 winner of the Nobel peace prize accused Mr Bush of making up his own definition of torture and the hawkish vice president, Dick Cheney, of being a "militant".

"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Mr Carter told CNN.

"We've said that the Geneva conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantánamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime."

The New York Times last reported on secret US justice department memorandums supporting the use of "harsh interrogation techniques".

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