Europeans ‘assisted CIA renditions’
Europeans ‘assisted CIA renditions’
By FT Reporters
Published: June 7 2006 11:30 | Last updated: June 7 2006 21:23. Copyright by The Financial Times
European countries – including Germany, the UK, Italy and Sweden – violated human rights by co-operating with CIA renditions, or extra-legal abductions, a wide-ranging report said on Wednesday.
The report, for the Council of Europe, the continent’s 46-nation human rights organisation, provoked furious reactions in Poland and Romania by claiming that air traffic records showed both countries may have housed secret CIA prisons.
Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Poland’s prime minister, called the claims “slander not based on any facts”.
The report caps seven months of research by its author, Dick Marty, a Swiss politician. It is likely to make it more difficult for European countries to co-operate with US intelligence. If substantiated, his suspicions of Poland and Romania could also hit both countries’ standing in the EU, particularly because Bucharest has yet to convince the EU that it should join the 25-nation bloc on schedule, on January 1 2007.
Mr Marty said: “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.”
The 67-page report is the most exhaustive study yet of the “spider’s web” of CIA detentions and transfers across Europe, and incorporates flight data made available by European air transport authorities.
Mr Marty faults seven countries – which also include Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – for violating human rights through such actions as handing detainees to US agents, permitting “rendition aircraft” to land at airports or providing the CIA with information that allowed people to be located. In spite of frequent US statements that rendition is not related to torture, Mr Marty cites testimony of severe mistreatment – including beatings, cuts and humiliation – by ex-detainees.
Sean McCormack, US State Department spokesman, said the Bush administration was “disappointed at the tone and content” of the report.
Tony Blair, prime minister, told the House of Commons the report “added absolutely nothing new”.
Reporting by Daniel Dombey in London, Guy Dinmore in Washington, Jan Cienski in Warsaw, Christopher Condon in Budapest, David Ibison in Stockholm and Hugh Williamson in Berlin
By FT Reporters
Published: June 7 2006 11:30 | Last updated: June 7 2006 21:23. Copyright by The Financial Times
European countries – including Germany, the UK, Italy and Sweden – violated human rights by co-operating with CIA renditions, or extra-legal abductions, a wide-ranging report said on Wednesday.
The report, for the Council of Europe, the continent’s 46-nation human rights organisation, provoked furious reactions in Poland and Romania by claiming that air traffic records showed both countries may have housed secret CIA prisons.
Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Poland’s prime minister, called the claims “slander not based on any facts”.
The report caps seven months of research by its author, Dick Marty, a Swiss politician. It is likely to make it more difficult for European countries to co-operate with US intelligence. If substantiated, his suspicions of Poland and Romania could also hit both countries’ standing in the EU, particularly because Bucharest has yet to convince the EU that it should join the 25-nation bloc on schedule, on January 1 2007.
Mr Marty said: “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.”
The 67-page report is the most exhaustive study yet of the “spider’s web” of CIA detentions and transfers across Europe, and incorporates flight data made available by European air transport authorities.
Mr Marty faults seven countries – which also include Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – for violating human rights through such actions as handing detainees to US agents, permitting “rendition aircraft” to land at airports or providing the CIA with information that allowed people to be located. In spite of frequent US statements that rendition is not related to torture, Mr Marty cites testimony of severe mistreatment – including beatings, cuts and humiliation – by ex-detainees.
Sean McCormack, US State Department spokesman, said the Bush administration was “disappointed at the tone and content” of the report.
Tony Blair, prime minister, told the House of Commons the report “added absolutely nothing new”.
Reporting by Daniel Dombey in London, Guy Dinmore in Washington, Jan Cienski in Warsaw, Christopher Condon in Budapest, David Ibison in Stockholm and Hugh Williamson in Berlin
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