CIA Chief: Interrogation Methods 'Unique' But Legal

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European investigator: Large CIA detention bases unlikely
AP



BUCHAREST, Romania -- The head of a European investigation into alleged secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe said Friday it was unlikely that there were large clandestine detention centers in the region.

Dick Marty, the Swiss senator heading the investigation on behalf of the Council of Europe, said he did not believe a prison like the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was possible in the region.

"But it is possible that there were detainees that stayed 10, 15 or 30 days," Marty told reporters, without referring to any country. "We do not have the full picture."

Marty was in Romania for a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The council's secretary general, Terry Davis, said he has written to its member nations asking them if they have laws to prevent the transportation of prisoners and secret prisons. The countries have until Feb. 21 to respond.

The council, Europe's main human rights watchdog, began investigations after the Washington Post and Human Rights Watch published reports about CIA planes transporting suspected terrorist through European countries and raised the possibility that the CIA had set up secret detention facilities in Eastern Europe.

Human Rights Watch said flights stopped at the Romanian air base of Mihail Kogalniceanu and Poland's Szczytno-Szymany airport, basing its information on flight logs of suspected CIA aircraft from 2001 to 2004.

Romanian leaders and the Pentagon have denied that the Mihail Kogalniceanu base ever hosted a covert detention center, and the Romanians insist the United States never used it as a transit point for al-Qaida captives. Poland's prime minister said the reports were worth investigating.

The CIA has refused to comment on the European investigation.

Marty has asked the Brussels, Belgium-based Eurocontrol air safety organization to provide details of 31 suspected aircraft that landed in Europe and, according to Human Rights Watch, had direct or indirect links to the CIA.

The Dutch government confirmed Friday that a plane landed at Amsterdam's airport last week belonging to Path Corp., a company previously linked to the CIA.

Also Friday, the Portuguese government said it was consulting with the U.S. government after Diario de Noticias reported Friday that 34 planes that landed in Portugal over the past three years were suspected of involvement in secret CIA operations.

Spanish authorities have investigated at least 10 stopovers on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca by private planes described in Spanish media reports as being operated for the CIA, and a smaller number of similar stopovers in the Canary Islands.

[Partridge]

Spain clears US of blame in CIA flight probe
Reuters

MADRID (Reuters) - The Spanish government, responding to allegations that CIA planes used a Spanish airport as a base to transport Islamic terrorism suspects, said on Thursday it was convinced U.S. aircraft had broken no law. However, it said it would step up checks on civilian planes that flew over or stopped in Spanish territory to make sure they were "exclusively civilian" flights.

Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos testified to a parliamentary committee on the flights after news reports about them prompted opposition parties to demand information from the government.

The reports said that the U.S. intelligence agency had used Son Sant Joan airport on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca as a base for transporting Islamic terrorism suspects from early 2004 to early 2005.

"The government is convinced, based on the result of the investigation carried out, that all the stops made in the framework of the Defense Cooperation Agreement between Spain and the United States, as well as stops by civilian planes ... were made in accordance with the law," Moratinos said.

Spain had sought and obtained the guarantee of U.S. authorities that, as far as they knew, there had been no violation of Spanish laws, he said.

However, he said the government would immediately step up checks on civilian aircraft that flew over or stopped in Spanish territory to make sure they were civilian flights. If necessary, the government would implement more exhaustive checks inside aircraft, he said.

Local prosecutors investigated the Mallorca stops but shelved the investigation because they could find no evidence of a crime, Moratinos said.

Prosecutors had also launched an investigation of stops by U.S. planes in the Canary Islands, Moratinos said. He said these included flights by U.S. forces, civilian flights and U.S. flights to repatriate migrants to Liberia and Nigeria.

The U.S. Ambassador to Spain, Eduardo Aguirre, said last week that the flights had not broken Spanish law.

The Washington Post reported this month that the CIA had been holding and interrogating al Qaeda captives at a secret facility in eastern Europe as part of a covert prison system established after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

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Germany: CIA flights make leaders squirm
Reuters

Berlin: A wave of investigations into whether the CIA broke laws and violated human rights while using Europe as a hub for secret transfers of terrorist suspects poses awkward questions for both European governments and Washington.

Pressure has grown on all sides in the past week to explain dozens of flights criss-crossing the continent by CIA planes, some suspected of delivering prisoners to jails in third countries where they may have been mistreated or tortured.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, preparing this week for his first trip to Washington since taking office, told Bild am Sonntag newspaper the reports gave "grounds for concern".

At least eight EU members said last week they were seeking answers from the US over the use of bases on the continent for such secret transfers, known as "renditions."

The Council of Europe, a leading human rights watchdog, set governments a three-month deadline to reveal what they know about the mystery flights and about a Washington Post report saying the CIA ran secret prisons in Eastern Europe.

A European diplomat specialising in security issues said there had been cases where European airports had been used as staging posts during renditions.

Governments are in a lose-lose situation. If they acknowledged they knew of such transfers at the time, they would face a political outcry, he said.

But if they said they knew nothing about what was happening on their own soil, they would appear ineffectual and come under strong pressure to tighten controls over use of their airports and bases by the United States, or even to deny access.

The US has acknowledged using renditions to help in its declared war on terrorism but denies charges by human rights groups that delivering suspects for interrogation in third countries amounts to "outsourcing torture."

[Partridge]

EU May Suspend Nations With Secret Prisons
AP

BERLIN Nov 28, 2005 — The United States has told the European Union it needs more time to respond to media reports that the CIA set up secret jails in some European nations and transported terror suspects by covert flights, the top EU justice official said Monday.

Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini also warned that that any of the 25 bloc nations found to have operated secret CIA prisons could have their EU voting rights suspended.

The Council of Europe the continent's main human rights watchdog is investigating the allegations, and EU justice official Jonathan Faul last week formally raised the issue with White House and U.S. State Department representatives, Frattini said.

"They told him: 'Give us the appropriate time to evaluate the situation.' Right now, there is no response," he said.

The CIA has refused to comment on the European investigation.

Frattini said suspending EU voting rights would be justified under the EU treaty, which stipulates that the bloc is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, and that a persistent breach of these principles can be punished.

Clandestine detention centers would violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

Allegations that the CIA hid and interrogated key al-Qaida suspects at Soviet-era compounds in Eastern Europe were first reported Nov. 2 in The Washington Post. A day after the report appeared, Human Rights Watch said it had evidence indicating the CIA transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania.

Poland President Aleksander Kwasniewski reiterated Monday that his country has never allowed the CIA to hold prisoners on its territory.

However, Kwasniewski said he was not the right official to comment on related allegations that CIA flights carrying terror suspects had secretly landed in Poland.

"No president is informed if some plane lands," Kwasniewski said.

Frattini said Romania's interior minister, Vasile Blaga, had assured him the allegations were untrue and that a base at Mihail Kogalniceanu used by American forces from 2001-03 to transport troops and equipment to Afghanistan and Iraq was not used as a detention center.

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Rice rejects EU protests over secret terror prisons

America does not break international law, Secretary of State insists

Antony Barnett and Jamie Doward
Sunday December 4, 2005
The Observer

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will inflame the transatlantic row over America's alleged torture of terror suspects in secret jails by telling Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and other European officials to 'back off'.Rice, who arrives in Brussels tomorrow for a meeting with Nato foreign ministers, has been under pressure to respond to claims the US has been using covert prisons in Eastern Europe to interrogate Islamic militants. Human rights groups have alleged the CIA is flying terror suspects to secret jails in planes that have used airports throughout Europe, including Britain.

Rice's refusal to answer detailed questions on what has become known as 'extraordinary rendition' will anger many in Europe. Last week Straw wrote to Rice asking for clarification about some 80 flights by CIA planes that have passed through the UK. European politicians and human rights groups claim the flights and use of a network of secret jails breach international law.

State Department officials have hinted that Rice's response to Straw and other European ministers will remind them of their 'co-operation' in the war on terror. She is expected to make a public statement today stressing that the US does not violate allies' sovereignty or break international law. She will also remind people their governments are co-operating in a fight against militants who have bombed commuters in London and Madrid. She will drive home her message in private meetings with officials in Germany and at the EU headquarters in Brussels.

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said Rice told him in Washington she expected allies to trust that America does not allow rights abuses.

An unnamed European diplomat who had contact with US officials over the handling of the scandals told Reuters yesterday: 'It's very clear they want European governments to stop pushing on this... They were stuck on the defensive for weeks, but suddenly the line has toughened up incredibly.'

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who will be chairing a Commons committee of MPs along with Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, has said Rice needs to make a clear statement. She 'does not seem to realise that for a large section of Washington and European opinion, the Bush administration is in a shrinking minority of people that has not grasped that lowering our standards [on human rights] makes us less, not more, secure'.

The row is set to escalate in Washington itself, as a US civil rights group says it is taking the CIA to court to stop the transportation of terror suspects to countries outside US legal authority.

The American Civil Liberties Union says the intelligence agency has broken both US and international law. It is acting for a man allegedly flown to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan.

In Britain, human rights group Liberty is to table an amendment to the Civil Aviation Bill that would oblige the Home Secretary to force any aircraft travelling through UK airspace suspected of extraordinary rendition to land and be searched by police and customs.

Straw is also facing calls to allow MPs and human rights groups access to Diego Garcia, the British island in the Indian Ocean being used as a US military base. It has long been suspected that the island has been used to hold or transfer terror suspects to secret US jails.

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Rice 'to talk tough on CIA claim'
BBC

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to go on the offensive over EU concerns that the US has operated secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe.

According to media reports in both the US and UK, Ms Rice will tell European allies to "back off" over the issue.

Last month the EU wrote to Ms Rice expressing misgivings over the alleged jails and reports CIA planes carrying detainees had stopped in EU countries.

Ms Rice said she would respond to the EU before a visit to Europe on Monday.

Change of tack

The Washington Post newspaper first reported on 2 November that the CIA had been using Soviet-era camps in eastern Europe to detain and interrogate terror suspects.

In response to that and further media reports of possible violations of international law Britain formally wrote to the US, on behalf the EU, to ask for "clarification".

"It's very clear they want European governments to stop pushing on this,'' a European diplomat, who has been speaking to the US officials drafting Ms Rice's response, told the New York Times. "They were stuck on the defensive for weeks, but suddenly the line has toughened up incredibly."

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern told the New York Times that Ms Rice told him in Washington that she expected allies to trust that America does not allow rights abuses.

The US has refused to confirm or deny the reports and according to the Washington Post, Ms Rice has no plans to acknowledge the prisons.

Solidarity call

According to the daily, Ms Rice will insist that intelligence co-operation between the US and Europe is necessary to prevent future terror attacks and call upon European governments to do more to emphasise this to their citizens.

"The key point will be 'We're all in this together and you need to look at yourselves as much as us,' " one official said to the Washington Post, on condition of anonymity. "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

A day after news of the alleged prisons emerged Human Rights Watch said it had evidence indicating that the CIA transported terror suspects captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania.

Poland and Romania have denied ever playing host to the alleged prisons.

A US rights group, the American Civil Liberties Union, announced on Friday that it was taking the CIA to court over what it said was the violation of both US and international law.

The highly secretive process is known as "extraordinary rendition" whereby intelligence agencies move and interrogate terrorism suspects outside the US, where they have no American legal protection.

Some individuals have claimed they were flown by the CIA to countries like Syria and Egypt, where they were tortured.

German claims

On Friday White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the US does not violate human rights.

"When it comes to human rights, there is no greater leader than the United States of America, and we show that by holding people accountable when they break the law or violate human rights," he said.

On Saturday, Germany emerged as the latest country suspected of being used as a landing spot for secret CIA flights.

The German government has a list of at least 437 flights suspected of being operated by the CIA in German airspace, according to a German magazine.

Der Spiegel said the aircraft had made landings in Berlin, Frankfurt and the US airbase at Ramstein.

Two planes alone accounted for 137 and 146 uses of airspace or landings in 2002 and 2003, the magazine reported.

[Gold9472]

US told Germany CIA imprisonment a mistake: report

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051204/...cia_germany_dc

2 hours, 13 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States admitted to German officials last year that the CIA had mistakenly imprisoned one of its citizens for five months but asked the German government to remain quiet, according to a U.S. media report on Sunday.

Daniel Coats, then the U.S. ambassador to Germany, told German Interior Minister Otto Schily in May 2004 that Khaled el-Masri had been wrongfully held but would soon be released, the Washington Post reported. He was later freed from a prison in Afghanistan.

The newspaper cited interviews with current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials. CIA officials told Reuters they had no comment.

The account comes as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prepared to visit Berlin and other European capitals amid allegations that the United States has committed abuses on the continent while fighting terrorism.

A German prosecutor is probing el-Masri's case but German officials who knew of his ordeal have remained silent, the Post said.

El-Masri, a German national who was arrested in Macedonia on December 31, 2003, has said he was handed to U.S. officials and flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he was held in appalling conditions and interrogated as a terrorism suspect.

He has said he was returned to Europe five months later when the CIA realized they had the wrong man.

"Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center's al Qaeda unit 'believed he was someone else,' one former CIA official said. 'She didn't really know. She just had a hunch,"' the Post report said.

On Tuesday, el-Masri plans to file suit against the CIA -- the same day Rice meets in Berlin with Germany's new chancellor, Angela Merkel.