[JURIST] New York-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] issued a report Wednesday criticizing the US and other governments in the West and Middle East for sending Islamist detainees to Egypt, a country infamous for torture [JURIST report]. The report, entitled Black Hole: The Fate of Islamists Rendered to Egypt [PDF text], tracked 61 individuals turned over to Egyptian custody since 1994, and concluded that the number actually tranferred there must be much higher because transfers usually occur secretly and without granting detainees an extradition hearing. HRW says that sending prisoners to countries where they are likely to be tortured is a clear breach of international law. President Bush insisted in an April 28 press conference [text], "We operate within the law and we send people to countries where they say they're not going to torture the people." Reuters has more.