VATICAN CITY, December 13, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Pope Benedict XVI stressed on Tuesday, December 13, that war could never justify human rights abuses, as a European watchdog said the US appeared to have abducted and detained individuals and illegally transferred them between countries.

"The truth of peace must also let its beneficial light shine even amid the tragedy of war," the pontiff said in a 12-page New Year peace message traditionally released by the Vatican ahead of the Christmas period, reported Reuters.

Pope Benedict said the Vatican was convinced international humanitarian law had to be respected "even in the midst of war".

Although he did not name any countries or wars, Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican Justice and Peace department, said the pontiff's words applied to all wars.

Asked if Iraq was included, he said: "That's correct."

Human Rights Watch revealed that US troops routinely subjected Iraqi detainees to severe beatings and other cruel and inhumane treatment as a "way of sport" or just to "relieve stress".

Asked if Pope Benedict was singling out the US for condemnation, Martino said the pontiff "is not condemning anybody but is inviting them to observe the Geneva Convention."

Washington also maintains that the Geneva Convention does not apply to foreign detainees in its so-called "war on terror".

However, human rights activists counter that the US is still bound by the 1984 UN Convention against torture to which it is a signatory.

"Torture is a humiliation of the human person, whoever he is," said Martino.

"The Church does not admit it ... there are other means to make people talk," he added.

Last week, a group of American Roman Catholic peace activists held a march to the US Naval Guantanamo Bay, protesting conditions for terror suspects.

The US has been keeping hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The New York Times revealed on October 17, 2004, that uncooperative detainees in Guantanamo were regularly tortured by US guards.

The HRW issued a report entitled "The Road To Abu Ghraib" linking the abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo to the policies adopted by US President George W. Bush in his so-called war on terror.

Marty said information "reinforced the credibility" of accusations on the transfer and temporary detention of individuals in Europe. (Reuters)

In a related development, the Strasburg-based Council of Europe said on Tuesday that the US appeared to have abducted and detained individuals and transformed them between countries, reported Agence France Presse (AFP).

"The information gathered to date reinforced the credibility of the allegations concerning the transfer and temporary detention of individuals, without any judicial involvement, in European countries," Dick Marty, rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, said in his findings presented to the human rights watchdog.

"Legal proceedings in progress in certain countries seemed to indicate that individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards," he concluded.

The Bush administration has been under growing international pressures over charges that the CIA has illegally used European airports and airspace to transport terror suspects between countries without legal process.

Reports of clandestine CIA interrogation centers and transport flights for terror suspects emerged in November, along with suggestions of on-board torture sessions.

The EU has threatened sanctions against any of its members found to have been operating such secret prisons, or allowing their territory to be used for the transport of the phantom detainees.

Renditions were was first authorized by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and used by the Clinton administration to transfer drug lords and terrorists to the US or other countries for military or criminal trials.

US President George W. Bush has strongly defended such transfers as "vital to the nation's defense".

Citing anonymous informants from inside intelligence agencies as well as published press reports, Marty said "the allegations that have been made are receiving day by day more weight."

Substantiating evidence for the charges, he said, came from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who failed to deny categorically that detainees were transported or held in Europe.

Marty quoted the widely-reported cases of two men -- an Egyptian imam and a German of Lebanese origin -- who were abducted by CIA snatch squads in Milan and Macedonia in 2003.

The first remains in custody in Egypt, while the second was the victim of a mistaken identity.

"These two facts are significant because they indicate methodology, logistics and personnel for this kind of operation -- operations which are totally contrary to the spirit and the text of the European convention on human rights," Marty stressed.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday, December 6, that Rice admitted her country made a mistake in abducting the German national and flying him to a secret prison in Afghanistan.

In a report entitled "Ending Secret Detention", the American Human Rights First said the US has more than 24 world detention camps, at least half of them operate in total secrecy, where the abuse of detainees is "inevitable".