CIA Prisons Moved To North
Africa
CBS News/AP
December 13, 2005
PARIS (AFX) - The CIA appears to have abducted suspects in Europe and
illegally transferred them to other countries, according to the preliminary
results of a Council of Europe investigation released today.
'Legal proceedings under way in certain countries appear to show that
individuals were abducted and transferred to other countries without respect
for any legal assistance procedures,' the Swiss senator who leads the inquiry,
Dick Marty, said as he presented his findings to date.
The rapporteur's comments, made at a meeting of the Council of Europe's
human rights committee, were released in an official statement from the
46-member rights and democracy body.
Marty said the results of his investigation added weight to reports that the
CIA flew terror suspects to and from secret prisons in Europe, and called for
European governments to fully investigate the claims.
'The elements we have gathered so far tend to reinforce the credibility of
the allegations concerning the transport and temporary detention of detainees
-- outside all judicial procedure -- in European countries,' he said.
The rapporteur 'demands immediately that all member governments fully commit
to uncovering the truth about flights and overflights on their territory in
recent years, by aircraft transporting people arrested and detained outside of
any legal procedure,' the statement said.
'If the allegations proved correct the member states would stand accused of
having seriously breached their human rights obligations to the Council of
Europe,' the statement said.
The rapporteur said he 'deplored the lack of information and explanation
provided by (US Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice during her visit to
Europe,' according to the statement.
The United States has come under mounting international pressure over claims
the CIA has been illegally using European airports and airspace to transport
Islamic suspects between countries without legal process.
Reports have emerged of many hundreds of CIA flights, suspected of carrying
undeclared prisoners across European airspace, since the September 11, 2001
attacks in the United States.
'It has to be said that the United States has never formally denied the
allegations,' Marty told the rights committee.
(AP) An investigator looking into claims of secret CIA prisons in Europe said
Tuesday that people were apparently abducted and transferred between countries
illegally.
Swiss senator Dick Marty told a news conference that he believed the United
States was no longer holding prisoners clandestinely in Europe. He believes
they were moved to North Africa in early November, when reports about the
secret detention centers appeared in The Washington Post.
In a written report, Marty said that information gathered so far "reinforced
the credibility of the allegations concerning the transfer and temporary
detention of individuals, without any judicial involvement, in European
countries."
"Legal proceedings in progress in certain countries seemed to indicate that
individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without
respect for any legal standards," he added in his findings presented in Paris
to a committee of the Council of Europe, the continent's human rights
watchdog.
Marty is investigating claims that the CIA transferred prisoners through
European airports to secret detention centers, actions that would breach the
continent's human rights principles.
Poland and Romania have been identified by the New York-based Human Rights
Watch as sites of possible CIA secret prisons, but both countries have
repeatedly denied any involvement.
Marty, in his report, added that it was "still too early to assert that
there had been any involvement or complicity of member states in illegal
actions."
He was critical of the United States for not formally confirming or denying
the allegations. He said he "deplores the fact that no information or
explanations" were provided by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who
faced repeated questions about the CIA prison allegations on her recent visit
to Europe.
Marty has requested air traffic log books to try to determine flight
patterns of several dozen suspected CIA airplanes. He has also requested
satellite pictures of the Sczytno-Szymany airport in northeastern Poland and
the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in eastern Romania, after they were identified
by Human Rights Watch as possible sites of clandestine CIA detention
centers.
After hearing Marty's presentation, Tony Lloyd, a member of the Council of
Europe committee, said, "The really difficult thing is the idea is that there
is a kind of legal black hole in the middle of Europe."
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