Do the CIA have a ‘Torture flight’ base in Malta?

By Michael Carabot
Malta Independent Online

The British newspaper The Daily Mail reported yesterday that one of the aircraft allegedly used in the CIA’s “ghost flights” to transport terror suspects to interrogation centres was allegedly based in Malta.

Malta was, however, excluded from alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers.

The Daily Mail linked the issue to a report compiled by a European Parliament committee which says the CASA-212 Aviocar in question, registration number N964BW, was on a list of “companies and aircraft used by the CIA for extraordinary rendition flights”.

The Daily Mail said that, according to the American Federal Aviation Authority, the plane was operated by two companies, Aviation World Wide Services and a sister company, Presidential Airways.

The committee’s November report said these were subsidiaries of Blackwater USA, described as “an important contractor for the CIA and the US military”, which The Daily Mail said based its planes in Malta. The newspaper also reported that records showed the plane was owned by Blackwater USA, a CIA contractor described as “the most secretive and powerful mercenary army on the planet”.

The report carried a photograph of the plane arriving at RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the month.

The newspaper suggested that, following its departure from Suffolk, the plane could have refuelled in East Anglia and then stopped off in its alleged Malta base. The newspaper also said that tracking technology showed that the plane flew from Canada to Greenland. Flight-tracking internet technology of the American Centre for Media and Democracy does not extend beyond American airspace, but an expert told The Daily Mail that its route would be consistent with a refuelling stop in the Arctic, followed by a further refuelling in East Anglia, before heading to Malta.

On Friday, findings by the Council of Europe human rights organisation accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair of colluding in a CIA operation to run secret prisons in Poland and Romania by allowing the agency to use UK airports.

In 2006, the British government had confirmed that Malta was one of the countries where CIA flights carrying terror suspects landed. The Foreign Affairs Ministry in Malta asked the US for information about these claims.

Around the same time, local newspaper l-orizzont had reported that between August 2001 and October 2005, 71 CIA flights were directed towards Europe, with eight landing in Malta.

A report on the matter in June by the Council of Europe excluded Malta from alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers. A supplementary report issued by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe referred to the conclusions of an investigation by pertinent Maltese authorities stating that “no Maltese public official or other persons acting in an official capacity have been involved by action or omission” in the alleged CIA flights and secret detention centres.

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