De EU verklaart' medeplichtigheid die in de geheime gevangenissen van de CIA wordt bevestigd
Het agentschap van de Intelligentie van de V.S. Centrale (de CIA) stelde in het geheim onwettige gevangenissen voor terrorismeverdachten in in werking veelvoudige plaatsen in Polen en Roemenië vanaf 2003 tot 2005, volgens een rapport dat door de Raad van Europa wordt vrijgegeven. Achtergrond:
Een onderzoek werd in werking gesteld in November 2005 door de Parlementaire Assemblage van de raad onder de leiding van assemblagelid en Zwitserse senator Dick Marty, om bewijs betreffende beweringen te leveren die eerst door het Horloge van Rechten van de mens in 2005 worden gemaakt dat de plaatsen in Polen en Romani onder plaatsen waren die door de CIA voor geheime detentie worden gebruikt.
Kwesties:
Het rapport van senator Marty's besluit dat er „nu genoeg bewijsmateriaal is om te verklaren dat er geheime detentiefaciliteiten die door de CIA worden geleid in Europa vanaf 2003 tot 2005 bestonden, in het bijzonder in Polen en Roemenië“. Het vindt ook dat de gevangenen in deze faciliteiten aan „ondervragingstechnieken gelijkwaardig aan marteling.“ werden onderworpen
Het rapport stelt verder voor dat President Aleksander Kwasniewski van Polen en vroegere voorzitter IonenIliescu van Roemenië geheime detentions machtigden.
Het rapport van de Raad van Europa hekelt de V.S. en verscheidene Europese landen voor deze misbruiken. Het betreurt ook welk het termen „obstakel“ door veel van de overheden bij de misbruiken betrok, die „alles de ware aard en de omvang van hun activiteiten hebben doen vermommen en blijvend in hun niet koeperatieve c houding“ geweest. In dit opzicht, kiest het rapport de Verenigde Staten, Polen, Roemenië, Macedonië, Italië en Duitsland voor kritiek uit.
Het rapport verstrekt nieuwe informatie die van verwezen verklaringen van meer dan 30 huidige en vroegere leden van de intelligentiediensten in de V.S. en Europa omvatten - ongeveer hoe het geheime programma in Polen en Roemenië werkte. Het bevat details van burgerluchtvaartverslagen over CIA-In werking gestelde vliegtuigen die voor gevangeneoverdrachten worden gebruikt, die vliegtuigen die tijdens de periode 2003 tonen door 2005 bij verre landingsbanen in Polen en Roemenië landen. Het beschrijft ook hoe vluchten aan Polen ¿ met inbegrip van die terrorisme verdachte Khalid Sjeik Mohammed van Kaboel aan Szymany op 7 Maart, 2003 kan vervoerd hebben - waren doelbewust vermomd gebruikend valse vluchtplannen.
Gevangenen van de CIA werden gehouden in Polen tot eind 2005. They are believed to have been transferred out of the region after the Washington Post reported in November 2005 that the CIA was using detention sites in Eastern Europe and Human Rights Watch released information showing that Poland and Romania were likely among the sites used. ABC News, relying on sources within the CIA, reported in December 2005 that the detainees were flown to Morocco.
In September 2006, US President George W. Bush publicly acknowledged the existence of the secret CIA detention system, and announced that 14 prisoners in secret CIA custody had been transferred to the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. In status hearings earlier this year, at least four of these 14 prisoners claimed that they had been tortured while in US custody.
Many detainees who are believed to have been held in CIA custody remain missing. Human Rights Watch has done extensive research on detainees believed to have been held by the CIA, and earlier this week issued an updated list of missing detainees jointly with five other human rights groups. The list named 39 persons whose fate and whereabouts are unknown.
However, the CIA dismissed the Council of Europe report - a CIA spokesman told the BBC that it was biased and distorted, and that the agency had operated lawfully.
Senator Marty’s charge, that secret CIA prisons “did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania”, was also denied by both Polish and Romanian officials.
Polish former president Aleksander Kwasniewski, who served from 1995 to 2005, said on 8 June: “There were no secret prisons in Poland.”
Romanian senator Norica Nicolai, who headed an investigation into the allegations, also denied his country’s involvement.
“All statements made by Dick Marty are totally groundless,” he said.
Positions:
The European Commission confirmed that it received on Friday 8 June the second report of ‘Secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states’ , which was adopted by the Council of Europe’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, and will now be discussed by Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe. However, it declined to comment further, stating its wish “not to interfere” with the Committee and Assembly’s work.
“Today’s report confirms that Poland and Romania helped the CIA operate illegal detention sites on their territory in violation of international law,” said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. “It is now clear that US officials illegally conspired with intelligence officials in several European countries to ‘disappear’, interrogate and illegally transfer terrorism suspects, flouting basic human rights norms.”
UK Liberal Democrat MEP Sarah Ludford, vice-president of the former committee of enquiry on CIA activities in the Parliament said: “The new Marty report confirms what had been found by the Council of Europe and the European Parliament. Any new evidence confirming that CIA prisons existed, as we alleged, in Europe, would be damning and shameful. As MEPs demanded, we must expose the secret agreements between US intelligence services and some European governments. These illegal, undemocratic and unacceptable actions must be accounted for and punished.”
Catalonian MEP Ignasi Guardans, former ALDE coordinator in the CIA committee, declared: “The release of this new report by the Council of Europe rapporteur will help to maintain the spotlight on what happened in the name of the ‘war on terror’. The EP too must maintain its scrutiny of this rendition practice in the coming months and continue to push the Member States to reveal the true facts of the matter.”
“I don’t know which is more shocking: that European governments have been complicit in these activities, violating their legal obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, or that they have used anti-democratic methods to conceal their actions and frustrate parliamentary and judicial investigations,” said Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe ( PACE ) President René van der Linden.
“Senator Marty’s report provides unprecedented detail of the unlawful activities of certain European governments in connection with CIA rendition flights and secret prisons and their disgraceful efforts to conceal their wrong-doing from scrutiny,” van der Linden added. “His revelations underline the essential role of the Council of Europe in ensuring respect for the international rule of law across the continent.”
See More:CIAHave Your Say: EU states’ complicity confirmed in CIA secret prisons
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Breaking News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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