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| Cia Torture Flights | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 15 2005, 08:12 PM (308 Views) | |
| abuturab82 | Nov 15 2005, 08:12 PM Post #1 |
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Madrid opens inquiry into CIA 'torture' flights By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid Published: 16 November 2005 Spain has launched a judicial inquiry into allegations that CIA aircraft may have secretly used a Spanish airport to transport terror suspects to clandestine interrogation camps, Jose Antonio Alonso, the Interior Minister, said. If the allegations proved true, Mr Alonso warned, "we would be looking at extremely serious, absolutely intolerable acts that violate rules for treating prisoners in a democratic society, and would demand a government response that would affect bilateral relations". The disputedeals a further blow to US-Spanish relations, already bruised by Spain's withdrawal of troops from Iraq last year. Spain's intelligence service, the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, knew CIA planes were making stopovers on Spanish soil and urged the American agency to stop the flights,El Pais newspaper said yesterday. The Spanish request was prompted by a police report last June that said 10 flights were found to have used Palma de Majorca airport. The CIA never acknowledged a connection with these flights, in which terror suspects were allegedly taken to third countries for interrogation in a programme known as "extraordinary rendition", El Pais said. Jose Bono, Spain's Defence Minister, said there was no proof the US had engaged in "illicit activities", and declined to criticise Washington. "We have no evidence, we have no proof, so I am not prepared to put a friendly, allied government on the spot on the basis of supposition and rumour," he said. Mr Bono recently visited the US to rebuild relations damaged by Spain's withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Bringing home Spanish soldiers was the first political decision by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government elected last March, just after Islamist terrorists attacked Madrid and killed 191 people. Majorcan police were alerted to the "prison planes" by newspaper investigations of suspicious flights landing in or leaving the island's airport from March last year. Reports in El Diario de Mallorca led residents to denounce to the authorities the alleged illegal detentions, kidnappings and torture, El Pais said. Local prosecutors asked police to investigate, who found that four planes had made at least 10 stops in Majorca between January 2004 and January this year. One flight arrived from Algiers on 22 January 2004 and took off the next day for Macedonia. There it allegedly collected a Lebanese-born German man, Khaled Masri, and took him to Kabul where he was beaten and interrogated over alleged links with al-Qa'ida. Other flights reportedly went to and from Libya and from Bucharest to Washington. Destinations included Ireland, Morocco and Sweden; countries of origin included Algeria, Romania and Egypt, El Pais said. The planes were said to be US-registered and used by Stevens Express Leasing, listed by The New York Times among those used by the CIA to transport suspects. Mr Alonso urged caution: "The matter is in the hands of a judge and we will see what his conclusions are." The row has killed any nascent Spanish-American rapprochement. "I cannot comment on such a sensitive matter," a US embassy spokesman in Madrid said. Spain has launched a judicial inquiry into allegations that CIA aircraft may have secretly used a Spanish airport to transport terror suspects to clandestine interrogation camps, Jose Antonio Alonso, the Interior Minister, said. If the allegations proved true, Mr Alonso warned, "we would be looking at extremely serious, absolutely intolerable acts that violate rules for treating prisoners in a democratic society, and would demand a government response that would affect bilateral relations". The disputedeals a further blow to US-Spanish relations, already bruised by Spain's withdrawal of troops from Iraq last year. Spain's intelligence service, the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, knew CIA planes were making stopovers on Spanish soil and urged the American agency to stop the flights,El Pais newspaper said yesterday. The Spanish request was prompted by a police report last June that said 10 flights were found to have used Palma de Majorca airport. The CIA never acknowledged a connection with these flights, in which terror suspects were allegedly taken to third countries for interrogation in a programme known as "extraordinary rendition", El Pais said. Jose Bono, Spain's Defence Minister, said there was no proof the US had engaged in "illicit activities", and declined to criticise Washington. "We have no evidence, we have no proof, so I am not prepared to put a friendly, allied government on the spot on the basis of supposition and rumour," he said. Mr Bono recently visited the US to rebuild relations damaged by Spain's withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Bringing home Spanish soldiers was the first political decision by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government elected last March, just after Islamist terrorists attacked Madrid and killed 191 people. Majorcan police were alerted to the "prison planes" by newspaper investigations of suspicious flights landing in or leaving the island's airport from March last year. Reports in El Diario de Mallorca led residents to denounce to the authorities the alleged illegal detentions, kidnappings and torture, El Pais said. Local prosecutors asked police to investigate, who found that four planes had made at least 10 stops in Majorca between January 2004 and January this year. One flight arrived from Algiers on 22 January 2004 and took off the next day for Macedonia. There it allegedly collected a Lebanese-born German man, Khaled Masri, and took him to Kabul where he was beaten and interrogated over alleged links with al-Qa'ida. Other flights reportedly went to and from Libya and from Bucharest to Washington. Destinations included Ireland, Morocco and Sweden; countries of origin included Algeria, Romania and Egypt, El Pais said. The planes were said to be US-registered and used by Stevens Express Leasing, listed by The New York Times among those used by the CIA to transport suspects. Mr Alonso urged caution: "The matter is in the hands of a judge and we will see what his conclusions are." The row has killed any nascent Spanish-American rapprochement. "I cannot comment on such a sensitive matter," a US embassy spokesman in Madrid said. http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article327342.ece |
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| abuturab82 | Dec 13 2005, 07:36 PM Post #2 |
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Investigator links Europe's spy agencies to CIA flights http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/...1666925,00.html Jon Henley in Paris and Richard Norton-Taylor Wednesday December 14, 2005 The Guardian CIA prisoners in Europe were apparently abducted and moved between countries illegally, possibly with the aid of national secret services who did not tell their governments, according to the first official report on the so-called "renditions" scandal. **** Marty, a Swiss senator investigating allegations of secret CIA prisons for the Council of Europe, said that he did not think the US was still holding prisoners in Europe, but had probably moved them to north Africa last month. Investigator links Europe's spy agencies to CIA flights Jon Henley in Paris and Richard Norton-Taylor Wednesday December 14, 2005 The Guardian CIA prisoners in Europe were apparently abducted and moved between countries illegally, possibly with the aid of national secret services who did not tell their governments, according to the first official report on the so-called "renditions" scandal. **** Marty, a Swiss senator investigating allegations of secret CIA prisons for the Council of Europe, said that he did not think the US was still holding prisoners in Europe, but had probably moved them to north Africa last month. Article continues Mr Marty said in a statement after a Paris meeting of the council that his information so far "reinforces the credibility of the allegations concerning the transfer and temporary detention of individuals, without any judicial involvement, in European countries". The council has set its 46 members a three-month deadline to reveal what they know about the transfers. Mr Marty said that if it was proved that European governments knew the renditions process, involving flying terrorist suspects to secret interrogation centres, was going on, they "would stand accused of having seriously breached their human rights obligations to the Council of Europe". The senator acted as British MPs and peers were told by an international lawyer that their government would break the law if it did not investigate allegations that the CIA transferred terrorist suspects via Britain to secret camps where they may have been tortured. "Credible information suggesting that foreign nationals are being transported by officials of another state, via the United Kingdom, to detention facilities for interrogation under torture, would imply a breach of the [UN torture ] convention and must be investigated," James Crawford, professor of international law at Cambridge University, told the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition. Yesterday in his interim report the Swiss senator criticised the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, for refusing to confirm or deny allegations, first published in the Washington Post last month, that the CIA maintained secret prisons in Europe, "The rapporteur ... deplores the fact that no information or explanation had been provided on this point by Ms Rice during her visit to Europe," he said. The US state department said Ms Rice had no specific response to Mr Marty. A spokesman, Justin Higgins, said: "The secretary has made numerous statements on this issue and on these allegations starting when she departed for Europe on December 5 and on her various stops in Ukraine, Romania, Germany and Belgium, and she's said all she wants to say on this subject for the time being." Human Rights Watch, a New York-based watchdog, claimed that Poland and Romania may have been sites for possible CIA prisons, but both countries have denied the allegations. Mr Marty has demanded air traffic log books, and satellite pictures of an airport in Poland and an air base in Romania. The senator said he believed European secret services had collaborated over the flights well beyond exchanges of information. "I think it would have been difficult for these actions to have taken place without a degree of collaboration," he said. "But it is possible that secret services did not inform their governments." The Foreign Office had no immediate comment on Mr Marty's statement. |
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2:07 PM Jul 11