Children as young as seven years old were 'forcibly disappeared' by the CIA, according to report published today jointly by six human rights groups naming 39 people who are believed to have been held in secret US custody and whose current whereabouts remain unknown.

The list-drafted by Amnesty International, Cageprisoners, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law, Human Rights Watch, and Reprieve-draws together information from government and media sources, as well as from interviews with former prisoners and other witnesses.

The 21-page briefing paper, Off the Record: U.S. Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the "War on Terror," includes detailed information about four people named as "disappeared" prisoners for the first time. The full list of people includes nationals from countries including Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan, and Spain. They are believed to have been arrested in countries including Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Sudan, and transferred to secret US detention centers.

....It reveals how suspects' relatives, including wives and children as young as seven, have been held in secret detention. In September 2002, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's two young sons, aged seven and nine, were arrested. According to eyewitnesses, the two were held in an adult detention center for at least four months while U.S. agents questioned the children about their father's whereabouts. Read More