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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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Commentary:
When Condi (I can't tell the truth) Rice said we're not torturing in Europe she really meant to say we've moved our torture chambers to Africa. The evidence is now overwhelming that the CIA moved POW's out of Europe prior to Rice's visit so she could say we're not torturing in Europe. The evidence is also increasingly self evident that Bush/Rice/the CIA are moving prisoners so the Red Cross can't see or talk to them which is another gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and an impeachable offense.