More Than 80,000 Held By US Since 9/11 Attacks

*growing worries over treatment of prisoners
*fury in Europe over Secret CIA terror suspect flights

by-Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday November 18, 2005
the Guardian

The US has detained more than 80, 000 people in facilities from Afghanistan to Cuba since the attacks on the World Trade Center four years ago, the Pentagon said yesterday. The disclosure comes at a time of growing unease about Washington's treatment of prisoners in its "war on terror" and Europe's unknowing help in the CIA's Practice of Rendition.

At least 14,500 people are in US custody in connection with the war on terror, Pentagon officials in Washington and Baghdad said yesterday. Some 13, 814 people are being held in Iraq and there are approximately 500 at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

But it was an even less visible aspect of America's detention policy that was causing a furore in European Capitals yesterday: the CIA's Practice of Rendering terror suspects for Interrogation to Secret Prisons in Third Countries.

The CIA has repeatedly declined to comment on reports it has transported terror suspects through European countries. The practice has been widely condemned by Human Rights Organizations for operating outside the scrutiny of the courts and for transporting prisoners to Countries Known to Use Torture.

Spain, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland are all reported to have served as stopovers for such flights.

The revelations have deepened disquiet about European collaboration with the more disturbing aspects of america's war on terror. This month it was reported that the CIA had situated two of its secret prisons in Romania and Poland.

The Council of Europe's Secretary General, which has named a Swiss Senator, Dick Marty, to Investigate the allegations, called for cooperation with the Inquiry yesterday.
"This issue goes to the very heart of the Council of Europe's Human Rights Mandate," Rene van der Linden, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly, said in a speech to the Council of Europe's Executive Body.

http://guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1645305,00.html