|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
|
March 13th,
2008 - Four Suspect CIA Flights Refuel at Airport |
|
Four Suspect
CIA Flights Refuel at Airport By Pat Flynn Limerick Reader March 13, 2008 Four CIA jets, two of which
were identified last year in a special EU report into the practice of
extraordinary rendition, have landed at Shannon Airport in recent days,
leading to renewed calls for the Government to ban aircraft suspected of
participating in the practice. Extraordinary renditions are
operations to apprehend terrorists abroad and transport them to another state
for interrogation, usually without the knowledge of the host government. The
procedure was developed by the CIA in the mid-1990s. At least four suspect
aircraft landed at Shannon over the past week. Last Wednesday, one of the
jets, registration N475LC, made a refuelling stop lasting half-an-hour.
Another plane, N478GS, made a similar stop at the airport on Saturday
afternoon. One man, believed to be a US government agent, was seen observing
the refuelling process. The planes, operated by
Centurion Aviation Services, a shelf company for the CIA, were identified in
the EU report on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the
transport and illegal detention of prisoners, which was published in November
2006. Despite this, both jets continue to stop at Shannon. Late last Sunday night, two
more aircraft, N71PG and N54PA, were due in Shannon. Records show that both
jets visited numerous airforce bases in the US in recent weeks. However,
flight records for N475LC and N478GS are no longer accessible online. Last October 30, when one
suspect jet landed at Shannon, gardaí refused to search the plane despite a
formal request to do so, stating that they had received instructions from the
Attorney General that such aircraft should not be searched. Retired Irish army
commandant and anti-war activist Edward Horgan claims that he has received
confirmation from a senior garda at Garda HQ that such a "letter of
advice" from the Attorney General to the legal section at Garda HQ did
exist, despite claims in the Dáil that no such instruction was given. Mr Horgan has now renewed
his original call, made in December, for the Government to ban suspect
aircraft from landing at Irish airports. The move came on the same day as the
Irish Human Rights Commission published its report on extraordinary
rendition. The report stated that
"assurances by the US and Irish governments that rendition flights have
not landed at Shannon are not sufficient for Ireland to meet its human rights
obligations, and any aircraft around which suspicion exists must be boarded
and examined by gardaí". The IHRC report also
recommended that consideration be given to establishing a Garda sub-station
at Shannon Airport, where many of the planes used in rendition operations are
alleged to have refuelled. Mr Horgan added: "It
may be months or years before we know what the purpose of these flights has
been, and in the meantime, Ireland is trafficking in torture and doing so for
economic reasons. "In recent weeks, it
has been revealed that the US government transported prisoners through the
British territory of Diego Garcia without apparently informing the British
government, and in spite of US government assurances that no prisoners were
transported through British territory. "Even more serious is
the statement in the past few days by Manfred Nowak, UN torture investigator,
that Diego Garcia was actually used to imprison prisoners captured by the US
in Afghanistan or Iraq." External link: http://www.limerickleader.ie/shannon/Four-suspect-CIA-flights-refuel.3874652.jp |