A Council of Europe report made public June 9 said that investigators have found proof that the CIA ran clandestine prisons for terrorist suspects in Europe with the full cooperation of government leaders, especially in Poland and Romania.
\nA European commission spokesman told journalists that the commission was in the process of studying the report and will make assessment in due course of time as it did not want to make any hasty comments. He, however lamented that in the absence of any investigative powers, the commission could not go into the matter on its own.
\nThe report, prepared by Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who is heading the investigation, said, \u201cThere is now enough evidence to state that secret detention facilities run by the CIA did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania.
\n\u201cWe have also had clear and detailed confirmation from our own sources, in both the American intelligence services and the countries concerned, that the two countries did host secret detention centres under a special CIA programme established by the American administration in the aftermath of\u00a0September 11, 2001, to \u2018kill, capture and detain\u2019 terrorist suspects deemed to be of \u2018high value\u2019,\u201d the report claimed.
\nFor example, Marty\u2019s report stated that investigators had received confirmation, \u201cfrom more than one source,\u201d of eight names of \u201chigh-value detainees\u201d that were held in Poland between 2003 and 2005. CIA sources told Marty\u2019s investigators that Poland was the \u201cblack site\u201d where both Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were held and questioned using \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques,\u201d which is usually a euphemism for torture.
\nAbu Zubaydah was a leading member of Osama bin Laden\u2019s brain trust and the operations chief of al-Qaeda. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted planning the September 11 attacks on the United States.
\nThe report states that these secret prisons \u201cwere run directly and exclusively by the CIA\u201d and that local staff performed only \u201cpurely logistical duties.\u201d
\nHowever, investigators had \u201csufficient grounds to declare that the highest state authorities were aware of the CIA\u2019s illegal activities on their territories.\u201d The report said that former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski as well as the former and current presidents of Romania, Ion Iliescu and Traian Basescu, \u201ccould be held accountable for these activities\u201d because they \u201cknew about and authorized\u201d them.
\nThe report noted that the \u201crendition, abduction and detention of terrorist suspects\u201d have always taken place outside US borders because they would have been \u201cruled unlawful and unconstitutional\u201d by American courts.
\n\u201cObviously, these actions are also unacceptable under the laws of European countries, who nonetheless tolerated them or colluded actively in carrying them out,\u201d the report said.
\n\u201cThis export of illegal activities overseas is all the more shocking in that it shows fundamental contempt for the countries on whose territories it was decided to commit the relevant acts,\u201d it said.
\nIn addition, the fact that these measures applied only to non-US citizens reflected \u201ca kind of legal apartheid,\u201d the report said. The blame does not lie only with Americans, but also, \u201cabove all, with European political leaders who have knowingly acquiesced in this state of affairs.\u201d
\nMarty\u2019s report also criticised Germany and Italy for having \u201cobstructed the search for the truth and continuing to do so by invoking the concept of \u2018state secrets\u2019.\u201d
\nIn an interview published in the French daily Le Figaro, Marty said, \u201cThe United States wanted to impose a war without rules against terrorism. This policy ended in disaster.\u201d
\nThe European Parliament which has been in the forefront of unmasking these facts about renditions flights by CIA and allied subjects was quick to respond.
\nMEP Sarah Ludford of the United Kingdom, vice-President of the former committee of enquiry on CIA activities in the EP said: \u201cThe 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.\u201d
\nMEP Ignasi Guardans of Spain, former Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) coordinator in the CIA committee declared: \u201cThe 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 \u2018war on terror.\u2019 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.\u201d As an immediate reaction, EU and NATO member Poland denied the findings of the report alleging it had hosted secret US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisons for terror suspects.
\nAccording to the report, Poland\u2019s former president Aleksander Kwasniewski had known about the covert CIA activities on Polish soil.
\n\u201cPoland maintains its position on the issue of the alleged CIA prisons on the territory of our country – There were no secret bases in Poland,\u201d Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Robert Szaniawski was quoted by the Polish PAP news agency last Friday.
\nSzaniawski added Polish officials were waiting for the Council of Europe to produce more details and evidence to support its claims. \u201cUp to now the evidence presented on this issue has been worth very little,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n