US embassy cables | Foreign ministry 'to verify' ambassador's comments on Council of Europe human rights czar

The foreign ministry is refraining from comment on the alleged 'bad relations' Ambassador Joseph Licari is said to have with the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner Thomas Hammarberg, until it verifies the comments that appeared in a confidential US embassy cable released on Wikileaks.

"The Ministry cannot comment on facts that have not yet been verified," spokesperson Melvyn Mangion told MaltaToday. A request for comment to Ambassador Licari has still not been answered. According to the embassy cable, Malta's ambassador to the Council of Europe regards Thomas Hammarber, the Council of Europe's vociferous human rights czar - as someone who thinks is "God"s gift to the world."

In the confidential cable, US consul-general Vincent Carver says Joseph Licari - a veteran ambassador to the Council of Europe, the most authoritative human rights body for European countries - was one of the ambassadors who "have a history of bad relations with Hammarberg." In the cable dated September 2009, he said Hammarberg was "criticized by a few ambassadors for having written in June to all COE member states calling on them to consider accepting detainees from Guantanamo. The Maltese Ambassador (one of those criticizing Hammarberg) told us privately that Hammarberg thinks he is 'God"s gift to the world'."

Licari then told Carver that if Washington wanted assistance with the detainees "it had plenty of direct channels to European countries and did not need Hammarberg to carry its messages." But Carver also singled out Licari as only one of "a few ambassadors" with bad relations with Hammarberg, whose dogged criticism of Malta's detention system for asylum seekers might offer clues into why Licari is annoyed at the ambassador.

"Most member states respect and even relish Hammarberg's independence. We do not expect this recent criticism to stifle Hammarberg from raising the detainee issue with European officials."

The same cable also revealed how US officials regard European human rights standards as an "irritant", especially over the Council of Europe's stance against extraditions to America, as well as secret renditions and prisons used to hold terrorist suspects. Carver blamed the Council for creating anti-US sentiment and hampering the US war on terror. "The Council of Europe (COE) likes to portray itself as a bastion of democracy, a promoter of human rights, and the last best hope for defending the rule of law in Europe - and beyond," Carver said.

"[But] it is an organisation with an inferiority complex and, simultaneously, an overambitious agenda."