Amnesty International (AI), a leading human rights group, Thursday condemned the United States for the “unlawful” commando raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in his Abbottabad hideout.

“The US administration made clear that the operation had been conducted under the United States’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,” the human rights group said in its annual report released at the UN and in many cities around the world on Thursday.

“In the absence of further clarification from US authorities, the killing of Osama Bin Laden would appear to have been unlawful,” it added. Since last year’s cross-border raid, Pakistan has consistently held that the CIA action was illegal and a violation of international law.

Amnesty also lashed out at human rights violations committed by the administration of former President George W Bush and condemned the “impunity” with which his officials had operated. The global rights monitor also criticised 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 the probe into the vast majority of alleged interrogation abuses.

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