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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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October 31st,
2009 - Jet Named in Torture Flight Report is Met by SAS at British Airport |
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Jet Named in Torture Flight Report
is Met by SAS at British Airport By Miles Goslett The Daily Mail October 31, 2009 A U.S. plane that featured
in a European Parliament report into the 'extraordinary rendition' of terror
suspects was met by two SAS helicopters in a secret operation at one of
Britain's biggest airports. The Gulfstream jet landed at
Birmingham International Airport on Friday, October 2, having flown in from
an undisclosed location, and was seen by a member of staff being met minutes
later by the Special Forces regiment aircraft. Records show that the jet is
owned by a subsidiary of L-3 Communications, a multi-billion-dollar defence
corporation based in New York, whose clients include several American
government departments, among them the Department of Homeland Security. The jet was cited in a 2007
European Parliament report into CIA rendition - the process of smuggling
terrorist suspects to interrogation centres abroad. While not claiming that the
plane had been used in a rendition, it stated that the plane was involved in
an accident at Bucharest airport, having arrived from Bagram airbase in
Afghanistan, and that a passenger on board was found carrying a pistol with
ammunition. The Birmingham airport
employee who saw it land said helicopters that he recognised as belonging to
the SAS's support flight, 8 Flight Army Air Corps, based at Credenhill, near
Hereford, arrived shortly afterwards. The witness, who did not
want to be named, added that he saw another
plane, a Boeing 757 operated by
COMCO, land at the airport on October 1, and that this was also met by
two SAS helicopters. He said: 'People were seen transferring between all the
aircraft.' The aircraft's presence at
Birmingham airport was also confirmed by Ron Kosys, a member of the
Birmingham Aviation Enthusiasts Group, who has posted pictures on the group's
website. The planes were parked in an
area mostly used by private aircraft and situated away from the main runways. The disclosure will reignite
controversy over the use of British airspace and facilities by US-owned
planes linked to rendition flights. Last year, Foreign Secretary
David Miliband was forced to admit that two American extraordinary rendition
flights had landed on UK territory in 2002. Mr Miliband revealed that
both flights had refuelled on the British dependent territory of Diego Garcia
in the Indian Ocean. He apologised for the
renditions, which contradicted successive statements made by Tony Blair in
2005, 2006 and 2007 saying there was no evidence that rendition flights had
stopped on British territory. The Gulfstream, registration
number N478GS, is owned by a company called L-3 Integrated Systems. The European Parliament
report details how, on December 6, 2004, the Gulfstream jet was involved in
an accident while flying from Bagram airbase in Afghanistan into Bucharest
airport in Romania. Although seven passengers
were believed to have been on board, nobody involved in the Romanian
investigation into the crash ever established what happened to them, as they
had left the scene before accident investigators arrived. A Ministry of Defence source
confirmed that SAS helicopters did meet the two aircraft at Birmingham
airport but said their presence could be explained by an organised meeting to
discuss 'routine business between two allies'. He denied it had anything to
do with rendition. One aviation expert told The
Mail on Sunday how he had tried to use the online tracking service
www.flightaware.co.uk to monitor the flight plans of both planes to find out
where they had flown from before landing in Birmingham on October 1, and
where they flew to when they left on October 3. He was 'very surprised' to
find that he was unable to. He added that this level of secrecy was highly
unusual. Spokesmen for Birmingham
airport and National Air Traffic Services said the planes' flight plans were
confidential. A Foreign Office spokesman
said: 'We unreservedly condemn any practice of extraordinary rendition to
torture. The UK's clear policy is not to participate in, solicit, encourage
or condone the use of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment for any
purpose. We will not co-operate in any transfer of an individual where we believe
there is a real risk of torture to the individual concerned.' Shami Chakrabarti, director
of pressure group Liberty, said: 'The sighting of a plane previously
associated with some of the darkest aspects of the war on terror is a matter
of grave concern. 'Ministers should be able to
confirm whether or not it was transporting suspects on this occasion. In any
event, the case for a wider inquiry into extraordinary rendition has become
unanswerable.' External link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1224386/Jet-named-torture-flight-report-met-SAS-British-airport.html |