New Delhi: The US special operation in Pakistan's Abbottabad town in May last year that killed Osama bin Laden in his hideout appears to have been "unlawful" in the absence of clarification from the US, human rights group Amnesty International has said.
"The US administration made clear that the operation had been conducted under the US's theory of a global armed conflict between the US and al Qaeda, in which the US does not recognise the applicability of international human rights law," Pakistan's Online news agency quoted the Amnesty report as saying.
"In the absence of further clarification from the US authorities, the killing of Osama bin Laden would appear to have been unlawful," it said.
The report also raised concern regarding US drone strikes inside Pakistani territory, which have killed many innocent civilians.
The global rights monitor also criticized Canada for failing to arrest Bush when he visited in October, "despite clear evidence that he was responsible for crimes under international law, including torture."
"There was no accountability for human rights violations committed under the administration of president George W. Bush as part of the CIA's program of secret detention and rendition," Amnesty said, referring to the transfer of individuals from one country to another without access to legal process.
Attorney General Eric Holder in June 2011 launched a criminal investigation into the deaths of two detainees in CIA custody but dropped probes into the vast majority of alleged interrogation abuses.
Amnesty regretted President Barack Obama's failure to shut down Guantanamo, noting that at the end of 2011, nearly two years after his self-imposed closure deadline, "171 men were still held at the base, including four who had been convicted by military commission."
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