BDFM Online
Thursday, November 30, 2006
BRUSSELS - A European parliament report on Tuesday said that Britain, Poland, Italy, Germany and seven other European Union (EU) nations were aware of the running of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) secret prisons in Europe.
The draft report, written after months of a special committee investigation, also accused top EU officials, including foreign policy chief Javier Solana, of not coming clean about the alleged US-run secret jails and secret abductions of terror suspects across the EU.
"At least 1245 flights operated by the CIA have flown into the European airspace or stopped over at European airports," the draft said. The report said 11 EU nations - Britain, Poland, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus - had knowledge of the US secret antiterror measures taking place on European soil.
The draft presented to the EU assembly's special committee investigating alleged CIA kidnappings and prisons in Europe, called on national authorities to launch separate legal probes into whether they had violated EU human rights laws.
The report criticised EU anti-terrorism co-ordinator Gijs de Vries and Solana of "omissions and denials" made during their testimonies to the committee.
While thin on proof to back up their allegations, the committee report claimed it got information from secret documents and information from several sources in the US, and from national authorities in the 25-nation bloc.
It said the committee had "serious circumstantial evidence" showing that Poland may have hosted a temporary secret detention centre for the CIA.
The report also slammed most of the 25 EU governments for lack of co-operation in their probe, which was launched in January and is expected to last until January next year.
The draft report will be voted upon by the special committee after the EU assembly's Christmas break, officials said.
Allegations that CIA agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centres, including compounds in eastern Europe, were first reported in November last year.
Human Rights Watch later identified Poland and Romania as possible locations of the alleged secret prisons. An investigator for the Council of Europe, a leading human rights group, said evidence pointed to the likelihood that planes linked to the CIA carrying terror suspects stopped in Romania and Poland and likely dropped off detainees there.
In September, US President George Bush acknowledged for the first time that terrorism suspects have been held in CIA-run prisons overseas, but did not specify where. Sapa-AP