Non-Iraqi prisoners not covered by Geneva accords: US

The consensus reached since March 2004 by lawyers from the departments of state, justice and defense, the National Security Council and other US government agencies lets the Central Intelligence Agency treat some prisoners the same way as members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban captured in Afghanistan.

The new legal opinion was outlined to The New York Times by unidentified government officials in response to a Washington Post report on Sunday on the CIA's secret transferal of detainees out of Iraq for interrogation purposes.

The Post said the CIA had requested and gotten a US Justice Department draft memorandum justifying the practice dated March 19, 2004. The Times' sources said that memorandum was not incorporated into the new legal opinion.

Officials told the Times that all prisoners transferred by the CIA out of Iraq had been moved between April 2003 and March 2004, adding that none had been transferred in the past six months.

However, the officials said the new legal opinion could open the way for additional transfers on a broader scale.

They said that under the new ruling, non-Iraqis who could be deemed exempt from the Geneva Conventions would include suspected members of al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups as well as other non-Iraqis believed to have traveled to Iraq to engage in terrorism or join the insurgency.

The Geneva accords are a set of international laws governing the conduct of war and occupation, and include rules on the humane treatment of prisoners.

Without indicating exactly how decisions are made about a person's status under the accords, the officials said that factors would include nationality, affiliation with terrorist organizations and activities in Iraq.

The decisions, they added, would be made by US government agencies who hold the suspects in their custody.