Swiss Dynamite on Secret CIA Prisons in Europe

European leaders knew about CIA activities, Swiss investigator says

European governments have known about secret US prison camps in Europe for at least two years, according to Swiss senator Dick Marty, who is leading a Council of Europe inquiry into the matter.

Speaking to journalists in Switzerland on Friday (13 January) Mr Marty accused European leaders of "shocking" passivity, arguing they knew about illegal detaining and transporting of prisoners taking place on their soil, media reports say.

"Since two, three years, the countries know what is happening. There are countries that have collaborated actively, and there are others who have tolerated. Others have simply looked the other way," Mr Marty told Swiss television channel TRS.

He said that it is impossible for Washington to fly prisoners across Europe without anyone knowing what was going on.

"It's not possible to transport people from one place to another in such a manner without the secret services knowing about it," the senator said.

Mr Marty is expected to submit a preliminary report into allegations about clandestine prison transports from European airports and prison camps across Europe to the Council of Europe and to the EU on 23 January, with Friday's announcement giving a taster of the content of his study.

"The question is: was the CIA really working in Europe? I believe we can say today, without a doubt, yes" Mr Marty said.

Washington's policy "respects neither human rights nor the Geneva Conventions," he added.

The US has refused to confirm or deny the allegations over secret prisons but has denied using or condoning torture.

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Europe 'ignored detention of prisoners by the CIA'

By Stephen Castle in Strasbourg
Published: 24 January 2006

European governments turned a blind eye to the illegal transport and detention of prisoners by the CIA, an investigator from Europe's main human rights watchdog will argue today.

Dick Marty, a Swiss parliamentarian, will release interim findings from his inquiries on behalf of the Council of Europe, assessing a host of allegations concerning secret flights across EU airspace and illegal prisons. However, the inquiry is not so far thought to have uncovered any new evidence on the most sensitive of the allegations - the location of secret prison sites.

Instead, Mr Marty's report will focus on cases already in the public domain, including those of the Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, allegedly kidnapped from Milan in 2003; and of a Lebanese-born German, Khaled el-Masri, who was allegedly abducted in Macedonia last year and flown to Afghanistan where he was held for four months.

Today's report marks the start, rather than the conclusion, of European efforts to get to the truth of CIA flight claims, which first surfaced last November.

The secretary general of the Council of Europe, Terry Davis, has invoked article 52 of the European Convention to ask all his 46 member nations to reply to a series of questions on the claims by 21 February. And last week the European Parliament agreed to set up a separate but parallel committee of inquiry which, though it will not be able to subpoena witnesses, has the power to embarrass governments by holding public hearings and making it clear who is refusing to cooperate.
European member states have been reluctant to press the US on the issue, leading to speculation that many were complicit in the CIA's activities. Yesterday, René van der Linden, chairman of the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly said he "would like to see some parliaments [stand up to] the governments."

Mr Marty has been promised imagery of possible detention sites from the EU's satellite centre at Torrejon in Spain, though this has not yet been delivered, nor has he received flight log books from the Brussels-based air safety organisation Eurocontrol.

The allegations fall into two categories. The first and most serious is that prisoners were detained secretly in two east European countries. Human Rights Watch identified Romania's Kogalniceanu military airfield and Poland's Szczytno-Szymany airport as possible sites for secret detention centres, basing its claims on flight logs of CIA aircraft from 2001 to 2004. Both governments deny involvement.

Mr Marty has conceded that he faces an uphill battle in proving these allegations, since the facilities for which he is searching are likely to be small, and have probably been closed.

The second set of claims centres on secret CIA flights. Across the continent, governments have been forced to reveal possible involvement with the flights. Sweden says at least one plane with possible CIA links has landed in its territory. Denmark has identified 14 suspect flights, while Norway pinpointed three. And Austria's air force is investigating allegations that a US transport plane containing suspected terrorist captives passed through the neutral country's airspace in 2003.

No 'formal' evidence of suspected CIA prisons: investigator

Jan 24, 2006, 12:58 GMT

Strasbourg - Europe's top investigator into alleged secret CIA prisons in Europe said in a report Tuesday there was evidence that the United States was 'outsourcing' torture to European countries but there was no 'formal evidence' of the existence of secret CIA prisons on the continent.

'There is a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of `relocation' or `outsourcing' of torture,' Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty said in a report presented to the human rights watchdog in Strasbourg.

Marty also said it was 'highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware' of the US practice.

On the alleged existence of secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe, Marty said however: 'There is no formal, irrefutable evidence of the existence of secret CIA detention centres in Romania, Poland or any other country.'

The Swiss senator was presenting the conclusions of his nearly three months of investigations into media reports of US rendition of prisoners to countries tolerating torture and of the existence of secret CIA detention centres in eastern Europe.

The Swiss investigator stressed that there were numerous indications from several reliable sources which would justify carrying out further investigations into the prison allegations.

Marty also said there was evidence pointing to illegal transport of prisoners in Europe, something which had not been denied by officials. The remark was in apparent reference to the Islamic cleric Abu Omar in Italy and the German national Khaled El Masri.


© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

CIA tried to silence EU on torture flights


Germany offered access to prisoner in Morocco if it quelled opposition

Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday October 26, 2006
The Guardian

The CIA tried to persuade Germany to silence EU protests about the human rights record of one of America's key allies in its clandestine torture flights programme, the Guardian can reveal.
According to a secret intelligence report, the CIA offered to let Germany have access to one of its citizens, an al-Qaida suspect being held in a Moroccan cell. But the US secret agents demanded that in return, Berlin should cooperate and "avert pressure from EU" over human rights abuses in the north African country. The report describes Morocco as a "valuable partner in the fight against terrorism".
The classified documents prepared for the German parliament last February make clear that Berlin did eventually get to see the detained suspect, who was arrested in Morocco in 2002 as an alleged organiser of the September 11 strikes.
He was flown from Morocco to Syria on another rendition flight. Syria offered access to the prisoner on the condition that charges were dropped against Syrian intelligence agents in Germany accused of threatening Syrian dissidents. Germany dropped the charges, but denied any link.

After the CIA offered a deal to Germany, EU countries adopted an almost universal policy of downplaying criticism of human rights records in countries where terrorist suspects have been held. They have also sidestepped questions about secret CIA flights partly because of growing evidence of their complicity.

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TRIBUNE EXCLUSIVE

Remote Polish airstrip holds clues to secret CIA flights

By Tom Hundley
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published February 6, 2007


SZYMANY, Poland -- At the end of a narrow lane that slices deep into the pine forests of northern Poland, a sign in four languages improbably announces that you have arrived at an international airport.

The 6,500-foot runway--long enough to land a Boeing 777--lies under a blanket of snow. No planes have landed here in months, and the front gate is locked.

But in late 2002 and 2003, there was a flurry of unusual activity at Mazury-Szczytno International Airport, a former military facility that happens to be near a Polish intelligence training complex where European investigators suspect the CIA maintained a secret interrogation and detention facility.

Planes began arriving from Afghanistan, all of them registered to American companies. Most of the planes were Gulfstreams, twin-engine jets popular with corporate executives. One was a Boeing 737.

These jets would park at the far end of the runway, where they would be met by government vehicles. The planes would stay no more than an hour or two before taking off. Their onward destinations were also unusual: Morocco, Uzbekistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"Everything was unusual, from beginning to end," said Mariola Przewlocka, who was the airport's manager from 2003 until 2005, when her job was eliminated. "I was told to accept these flights even when the airport was closed."

Przewlocka said she assumed the flights had something to do with the intelligence complex at Stare Kiejkuty, about 12 miles away.

Her suspicions seemed to be confirmed in November 2005 when Poland and Romania were accused by Human Rights Watch of allowing the CIA to operate secret interrogation and detention centers on their territory.

The 46-member Council of Europe ordered an investigation and named Swiss parliamentarian Dick Marty to head it.

Although Marty had no subpoena powers, his team of investigators used public records, satellite imaging, news accounts and interviews with officials to lay out a strong circumstantial case for what he described as a "spider's web" of clandestine CIA flights and secret detention centers.



`No formal evidence' exists

While acknowledging that "there is no formal evidence at this stage of the existence of CIA detention centers in Poland and Romania," he said his belief that such facilities did exist was "based on a careful balance of probabilities, as well as logical deductions from clearly established facts."

A parallel report adopted two weeks ago by a special committee of the European Parliament drew similar conclusions. It accused Poland and 10 other EU countries of being complicit in the CIA's practice of "rendition" and other operations in which terrorism suspects were taken to countries where they likely would face torture.

At the insistence of parliamentary conservatives in Brussels, the language in the report was softened to acknowledge that there was no hard evidence of CIA detention facilities in Poland. But it went on to "deplore" the Polish government's lack of cooperation with the investigation.

It noted the Poles' "contradictory statements and confusion about flight logs . . . which were first said not to have been retained, then said to have been faxed and destroyed, and finally said to have been saved in an unspecified place."

Despite official stonewalling, available records and witness testimonies gathered by the committee offer strong evidence of Polish government complicity.

Whenever one of the suspected flights was scheduled to land at Szymany, "orders were given directly by the regional border guards . . . emphasizing that the airport authorities should not approach the aircraft and that military staff and services alone were to handle those aircraft and only to complete the technical arrangements after the landing," the report said.

The head of Poland's military intelligence agency at the time of the flights, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, acknowledged in December that CIA flights landed at Szymany, and he was quoted by the Polish Press Agency as saying the CIA had "a special zone" inside Stare Kiejkuty.

But he adamantly denied that any detainees were taken to the intelligence center or that there were secret jails anywhere on Polish soil.

Germans Drop Bid for Extraditions In CIA Case
13 Agency Operatives Charged in Kidnapping

Washington Post
September 24, 2007

German authorities confirmed Sunday that they have dropped their efforts to seek the extradition of 13 CIA operatives charged in the kidnapping of a German citizen in the Balkans four years ago.

German Justice Ministry officials said they would not formally press the U.S. government to hand over the agents after U.S. officials made clear in recent weeks that they would not cooperate. The German officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing ministry policy.

A court in Munich issued arrest warrants for the CIA operatives in January after prosecutors said they were wanted on suspicion of kidnapping and inflicting bodily harm on Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent. The warrants remain in effect despite Germany's decision not to seek extradition; the agents could still face arrest if they travel to Germany or other countries in the European Union.

Masri has said he was detained by Macedonian police on Dec. 31, 2003, and handed over to the CIA a few weeks later. He said he was taken to a secret CIA-run prison in Afghanistan and physically abused before he was flown back to the Balkans without explanation in May 2004 and dumped on a hillside in Albania.

German officials said they were later informed privately by their U.S. counterparts that Masri was detained in a case of mistaken identity, apparently confused with a terrorism suspect of a similar name. U.S. officials have not publicly admitted any guilt or responsibility in the case.

Masri sued the CIA, but his complaint was dismissed last year on grounds that it could harm national security by revealing sensitive information about counterterrorism operations.

In May, he was committed to a psychiatric institution after he was arrested in the southern German city of Neu-Ulm on suspicion of arson. His attorney blamed his troubles on the CIA, saying the kidnapping and detention had left Masri a "psychological wreck."

Officials in Germany's Justice and Interior ministries had been divided over how aggressively to push for the arrest of the accused CIA operatives. Adding to the complexity of the case was the fact that prosecutors acknowledged that they did not know the true identities of most of the undercover agents.

Prosecutors in Munich had asked the German federal government to forward an extradition request to the U.S. Justice Department. In a compromise, German officials sent an informal inquiry to Washington last month. When U.S. officials responded that they would not cooperate, German authorities agreed to drop the matter.

Some German security officials had opposed the extradition request, arguing that it could undermine U.S.-German cooperation against terrorism.

Those concerns were underscored by the arrests this month of a suspected cell of Islamic radicals accused of plotting bomb attacks against Americans in Germany. The investigation in that case began in late 2006 after U.S. intelligence officials intercepted communications among the cell members and tipped off German security authorities.

EUROPE: Torture Flights Could Land Again

EUROPE: Torture Flights Could Land Again
Sep 27
IPS

Seven months after a European Parliament (EP) report spelt out Europe's involvement in a murky U.S. torture and kidnapping programme, the EU's governments have claimed they are powerless to prevent such abuses in the future.

In February, a EP committee concluded that at least 1,245 CIA-operated flights flew into European airspace or stopped at European airports in 2001-2005. In June, a Council of Europe investigation concluded the CIA ran secret prisons in Poland and Romania. But now the Europe minister of Portugal, current holder of the EU's presidency, said "We shouldn't confuse facts with allegations," and claimed that the EU has no legal power to reject American military or police overflights if no assurances on the respect of human rights were given, as the EP had urged. Amnesty International says that EU governments have "done nothing to follow up" the investigations.

Canada has issued a formal apology, and paid a 9 million dollar compensation, to one of its nationals who was falsely accused of terrorist involvement, captured by a U.S. agent while changing planes and held for 10 months in a Syrian dungeon, where he was tortured. But no similar efforts of compensation have been made by any European governments in the individual cases mentioned in the EP's findings.

Only 12 of the 27 EU countries have so far signed the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances. Polish and Romanian authorities have not replied to a request last July by European commissioner Frattini to have an in-depth inquiry into the secret detentions issue. No inquiry has been conducted by Ireland, where 147 CIA-operated flights had landed. Last week Germany announced that it has dropped a request for the U.S. to extradite 13 CIA agents suspected of abducting Khaled al-Masri.

German MEP Sylia-Yvonne Kaufmann said that the Berlin government has "bowed down to the U.S. authorities". There has been "an unlimited breach of human rights," she added; "and EU member states have looked the other way when abductions were carried out on their territories."