European States Colluded With CIA Secret Flights
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-Fourteen European States Colluded With CIA IN Secret US Flights For Terror Suspects, A Report Said-

Courtesy Of: BBC News
Wednesday, 7 June 2006

The report comes from Europe's human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe. It says there is evidence to back suspicions secret prisons are or were located in Poland and Romania--allegations both countries deny.

Under the CIA policy of rendition, prisoners are moved to third countries for interrogation. There have been allegations some were tortured.

The US admits to picking up terrorism suspects but denies sending them to nations to face torture.

The report by Swiss Senator Dick Marty follows a seven-month inquiry. It began in November amid a political outcry over media allegations of the existence of CIA detention centres in Eastern Europe.

Mr Marty has drawn on air traffic logs, satellite photos and accounts of prisoners who say they were abducted.


'SPIDER'S WEB'
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In an interim report in January, Mr Marty said European governments were almost certainly aware of the CIA's secret prisoner flights via European airspace or airports.

The new report says: "It is now clear--although we are still far from having established the truth--That authorities in several European countries actively participated with the CIA in these unlawful activities."

"Other countries ignored them knowingly, or did not want to know."

Spain, Turkey, Germany and Cyprus provided "staging posts" for rendition operations, while the UK, Portugal, Ireland and Greece were "stop-off points," the report says.

It says Italy, Sweden, Macedonia and Bosnia allowed the abduction of residents from their soil.

The most serious charges are levelled at Poland and Romania, where Mr Marty says there is enough evidence to support suspicions that CIA secret prisons were established.

Although the Swiss Senator says the US must bear responsibility for the flights, he says the programme could operate only with "the intentional or grossly negligent collusion of the European partners."

The "spider's web" of US rendition flights is based on an "utterly alien" approach that breaches human rights, he said.

The rest of the article can be read here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5054426.stm