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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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June 8th,
2007 - European Report Addresses CIA Sites News article by Washington Post |
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European Report Addresses
CIA Sites Prisons in Poland, Romania, It Says By Molly Moore and Julie Tate Washington Post Friday, June 8, 2007; 8:52 AM Paris, June 8 - A European
investigator said he has "factually established" that Poland and
Romania allowed the CIA to operate secret prisons where alleged al-Qaeda
operatives were detained and interrogated, according to documents presented
Friday to Europe's official human rights organization. Dick Marty, a Swiss lawyer
for the Council of Europe, the continent's human rights agency, said
detainees who were considered "especially sensitive" were
incarcerated in Poland and those believed "to be less important were
held in Romania," the documents said. The documents, released on
Friday by the council, include the cover letter and explanatory note of a
report Marty has drafted, as well as a related draft resolution to be
proposed to the council. A council committee approved Marty's report on
Friday, clearing it for discussion by the full body. The documents did not
provide details of the evidence Marty used to verify the participation of
Poland and Romania in the covert CIA program. But a press release from the
council said the conclusions were based on "cross-referenced
testimonies" of 30 current and former intelligence officials in the U.S.
and Europe, and analysis of computerized information about airplane flights
around the continent. Poland and Romania have
repeatedly denied hosting CIA prisons - a position they reiterated today as
the new report was being released. Marty said the two countries' government
agencies did not cooperate with his investigation. The report - part of a
larger investigation into partnerships among the CIA, NATO and European
nations in the capture, transfer and detention of suspected terrorists -
reflects European outrage over the secret operations. Separately, a European
Commission official said that governments accused of participating in the CIA
program now needed to perform their own investigations to determine if any
European Union laws were broken. According to wire service
reports, commission spokesperson Friso Roscam Abbing said that the EU was
"very concerned indeed" about the new report. "Effective
investigations should be fully carried out as quickly as possible in the
member states concerned ... in order to establish both responsibilities as
well as to enable the victims to obtain compensation for damages,"
Abbing said. "Large numbers of
people have been abducted from various locations across the world and
transferred to countries where they have been persecuted and where it is
known that torture is a common practice," Marty wrote, adding, "The
fight against terrorism must not serve as an excuse for systematic recourse
to illegal acts, massive violation of fundamental human rights and contempt
for the rule of law." Marty wrote that he was
"not ruling out the possibility that secret CIA detentions may also have
occurred" in other European countries, adding that his investigation was
hampered by the failure of the United States, NATO and many European
countries to cooperate with the probe. The Post, which first
reported on the existence of the secret prisons in 2005 and obtained Marty's
report a day before its release, has not published the names of East European
countries involved in the program at the request of senior U.S. officials,
who argued the disclosure could hamper counterterrorism efforts. "Some individuals were
kept in secret detention centers for periods of several years where they were
subjected to degrading treatment and so-called 'enhanced interrogation
techniques' (essentially a euphemism for a kind of torture)," Marty
wrote. He said many of the actions
are "unacceptable under the laws of European countries" and would
be legally challenged if they were undertaken in the United States. "The fact that the
measures only apply to non-American citizens reflects a kind of 'legal
apartheid,'" he wrote. In his explanatory note,
Marty concluded, "There is no real international strategy against
terrorism. ... The refusal to establish and recognize a functioning
international judicial and prosecution system is also a major weakness in our
efforts to combat international terrorism." John Sifton, a senior
researcher at Human Rights Watch, said his group has long alleged that
Romania and Poland participated in the CIA program. "The use of secret
detention sets a terrible example for other countries, who may use it to jail
political opponents or journalists, by labeling them 'enemies,'" he said
in an e-mail. "It can also be counter-productive and undermine the moral
equation of terrorism and counter-terrorism, by making suspected perpetrators
of terrorism into victims, while making the original victims of terrorism
into perpetrators." The Council of Europe
functions as the continent's official human rights watchdog. Its 47 member
nations are legally bound to observe its human rights statutes, although the
council has limited power to enforce the rules. Tate reported from
Washington. Washington Post staff writer Howard Schneider contributed to this
report. External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/08/AR2007060800985.html Secret Prisons in 2
Countries Held Qaeda Suspects, Report Says By Stephen Grey and Doreen Carvajal New York Times June 8, 2007 London, June 7 -
Investigators have confirmed the existence of clandestine C.I.A. prisons in
Romania and Poland housing leading members of Al Qaeda, contends a new report
from the Council of Europe, the European human rights monitoring agency. Dick Marty, the Swiss
senator leading the inquiry, said in a recent interview that his conclusions
were based on information from intelligence agents on both sides of the
Atlantic, including members of the C.I.A. counterterrorism center. The report
is to be released on Friday. The report says the jails
operated from 2003 to 2005. “Large numbers of people have been abducted from
various locations across the world and transferred to countries where they
have been persecuted and where it is known that torture is common practice,”
it says. These suspects included
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed master planner for the Sept. 11
attacks; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a member of the Hamburg, Germany, cell that
organized the conspiracy; and Abu Zubaida, believed to have been a senior
figure in Al Qaeda. The report says that some of
the information comes from trusted intelligence agents, who reported directly
to former President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland and to two former
Romanian leaders, Ion Iliescu and Traian Basescu. The governments of Poland and
Romania have denied the existence of such prisons, and officials could not be
reached for comment on Thursday. Poland has criticized Mr. Marty and his
investigators in the past for not traveling there to investigate the compound
that the report describes as a prison. The current president, Lech
Kaczynski, has said that since he came to power in December 2005 “there has
been no secret prison - I am 100 percent sure of it,” adding, “I am assured
there never were any in the past either.” Romania has repeatedly
denied the presence of a secret prison there. But last year, President
Bush acknowledged for the first time that terrorism suspects had been held in
C.I.A.-run prisons overseas, without specifying where. Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A.
spokesman, said Thursday that, “While I’ve yet to see the report, Europe has
been the source of grossly inaccurate allegations about the C.I.A. and
counterterrorism,” and he added, “People should remember that Europeans have
benefited from the agency’s bold, lawful work to disrupt terrorist plots.” The report contends, “What
was previously just a set of allegations is now proven.” An advance copy of
the report was obtained by the British Channel 4 program “Dispatches” and
provided to The New York Times. Apart from the statements of
what his report describes as former and serving intelligence agents, Mr.
Marty quotes aviation records that he suggests provide detailed evidence of
clandestine visits by C.I.A. planes to Szymany, in Poland; as well as the
text of confidential military agreements signed between the United States and
Romania that, he suggests, allowed the establishment of a C.I.A. base in the
country. Mr. Marty said the C.I.A.’s
partners in establishing the secret prisons were the military intelligence
agencies of both countries, which reported only to their presidents and
defense ministers. Neither the countries’ prime ministers nor the two
Parliaments’ intelligence committees were consulted or informed. Prisoners in the secret
jails were subjected to sleep deprivation and water-boarding, or simulated
drowning, said Mr. Marty, who also said that the two jails had been divided
into two categories. The main C.I.A. jail was
centered in a Soviet-era military compound at Stare Kjekuty, in northeastern
Poland, where about a dozen high-level terrorism suspects were jailed, the
report concludes. Lower-level prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq were held
in a military base near the Black Sea in Romania, the report contends. Jails were staffed entirely
by the C.I.A., and local guards secured the perimeters, the report says. “The
local authorities were not supposed to be aware of the exact number or the
identities of the prisoners who passed through the facilities - this was
information that they did not ‘need to know,’” the report said. Mr. Marty said last month in
an interview with the Swiss newspaper La Liberté that the report relied on
information from disaffected C.I.A. agents and other intelligence officials
on the other side of the Atlantic. Many of the agents said they were
surprised that the prisons remained a secret for so many years. “They spoke
to me because they found what was happening to be disgusting,” he was quoted
as saying. The report includes more
specific conclusions than a study issued in June last year that contended
that at least 14 European countries had accepted secret transfers of
terrorism suspects by the United States. That report listed a web of landing
points around the world that it said had been used by American authorities
for its air network. The new report contends that
the C.I.A. took extraordinary measures to cover its activities. When C.I.A.
jets flew to the Szymany airport in Poland, they used flight plans with
“fictitious routes,” it says, giving no indication that the airport was the destination.
Polish air traffic controllers - working with military intelligence -
completed the cover-up, the report says. Although the report singled
out Poland and Romania, it said that it could not rule out the possibility
that other European countries permitted these jails to operate. Among its accusations, this
report said NATO agreements, under the guise of waging a “war on terror,”
provided the framework that the C.I.A. used to expand its European operations
after Sept. 11. The Marty report says it
would be pointless for researchers to visit the Polish compound because “we
have no doubts about the capability of those who would have removed any
traces of the prisoner’s presence.” Mark Mazzetti contributed
reporting from Washington. Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/world/europe/08prisons.html |