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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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February 6th,
2009 - Inquiry into CIA Flights Nears Completion |
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Inquiry into
CIA Flights Nears Completion From Portugal News February 6, 2009 The inquiry into alleged
secret CIA extraordinary rendition flights through Portugal between 2002 and
2006 is “practically finished”, according to the Portuguese Attorney
General’s office. The office, responding to a
question posed by the Lusa News Agency, said the inquiry only lacked the
elaboration of “final conclusions” which would be made public at an
“opportune” time. Early last month, Attorney
General António Pinto Monteiro said the inquiry, which was opened in February
2007, would be concluded in February. The government of Prime
Minister José Sócrates has repeatedly denied any complicity in or knowledge
of the use of Portuguese airspace by the US intelligence agency to ferry
terrorist suspects clandestinely to secret prisons, including to the US base
at Guantanamo, Cuba. The controversy over alleged
CIA extraordinary rendition flights broke in November 2005 when the
Washington Post reported the existence of secret US prisons for terrorist
suspects in several countries. In a a related story, the
head of the EU’s Security, Organised Crime and Terrorism Observatory has
meanwhile warned that Portugal is “not free” of the terrorist threat and that
the risk of an eventual terrorist attack had grown with the recent discovery
of Pakistani cells in neighbouring Spain. “Portugal must remain
alert”, the observatory’s executive secretary, José Manuel Anes, told the
Lusa News Agency. Portugal and other EU states
“must monitor the flow” of North African immigrants and “the movement of
Pakistanis” suspected of links to Al-Qaeda within the framework of a “global
form” of pre-empting and combating terrorism, he said. José Manuel Anes was in
Lisbon to present the conclusions of a two-year study by the observatory at a
two-day conference on international terrorism, security and the rule of law. External link: http://www.the-news.net/cgi-bin/google.pl?id=996-14 |