Ethiopia

Ethiopia is no stranger to torture and secret imprisonment. Emperor Haile Selassie famously built an extensive network of secret underground prisons, and the state regularly tops the world torture charts.

As a leading regional power, and the only African state to have resisted colonisation, Ethiopia is a tricky customer when it comes to collusion with Western states in the global "War on Terror". The US and the UK clearly take advantage of Ethiopia's laissez-faire attitude to human rights by interrogating prisoners and receiving "intelligence" from prisoners held in conditions that would be illegal closer to home.

At the same time, Ethiopia always benefits from such "joint ventures", for example in its seizing of Canadian refugee Bashir Makhtal and numerous Ogaden and Oromo separatists in the midst of the 2007 border operation renditions.

Other examples of Ethiopian collusion with the US in national security-related abuses include the capture, rendition and detention on a US Naval ship of Mohammed Ali Isse, and the targeted killing of Kenyan Swale Nabhan.