CIA "Prisoner" Planes Landed 55 Times In Canada

CIA "Prisoner" Planes Landed 55 Times in Canada

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=55862

Politics: 29 November 2005, Tuesday.

American CIA planes, possibly used to transport Islamic prisoners, landed 55 times on Canadian airports during the five years, reports claim.

Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan commented that so far the claims for transporting prisoners on these planes have not been confirmed. There was also no verification of any illegal activity on these planes.

Thirteen US planes have landed on ten various Canadian airplanes, Canadian newspaper La Presse states, referring to flight records. Eight of these planes have stopped at the Guantanamo base in Cuba where several hundred terrorist suspects have been kept, the newspaper claims.

La Presse also states that some of the airplanes landed in Canada had been flying for Spain, Portugal, Germany and Great Britain, but it was not clear whether those were the final destinations.

The Council of Europe had announced earlier that they would probe into 31 suspicious flights that have landed in Europe in relation to the alleged secret CIA jails in Eastern Europe.

The scandal broke out after the Washington Post reported in an article of November 2 that the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe.

"The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba," the Washington Post reported, citing current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

The secret prisons were established with the approval of George Bush six days after the September 11 attacks, Dana Priest has written in the Washington Post.