Report Names
Poland and Romania in
CIA Secret Prison Scandal

Swiss Radio International 8jun2007

[Several articles below, plus more on CIA Secret Prisons ]

Swiss investigator says he has proof Poland and Romania hosted secret CIA prisons under a pact to track down suspected terrorists wanted by the United States.

Releasing details from his second report in Paris on Thursday, Dick Marty said Poland housed some of the CIA's most sensitive prisoners.

They included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who says he masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States that killed almost 3,000 people.

"There 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," Marty said in the report for the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog.

Marty issued a preliminary report last year, accusing 20 countries of colluding in a network of secret CIA jails and flight transfers.

President Bush confirmed last year the CIA had run secret detention centres abroad where terrorism suspects had been interrogated, but he did not name any countries.

On Thursday, Marty accused the former Polish president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, and the current and former presidents of Romania, Ion Iliescu and Traian Basescu, of having known and approved of the secret CIA operations on their soil.

His report said US intelligence contacts and other sources confirmed Poland and Romania "did host secret detention centres under a special CIA programme established by the American administration in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 to 'kill, capture and detain' terrorist suspects deemed of 'high value'".

The Swiss senator added that Germany and Italy had used "state secrecy" to obstruct investigations.

EU involvement

The facilities were "run directly and exclusively by the CIA" and European governments connived with the secret transfers and detentions, known as extraordinary renditions, Marty said.

Analysts say Marty's report could embarrass European governments, who have criticised the detention without trial of suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

Reacting to Marty's report, the European Commission called on Romania and Poland to hold urgent, independent investigations into the allegations and ensure any victims were compensated.

However, government officials in Poland, Romania and Germany either denied allegations of the presence of secret prisons on their soil or involvement of any kind.

Global spider's web

Marty stated in his preliminary report last year that 20 mostly European countries colluded in a "global spider's web" of secret CIA jails and flight transfers of terrorist suspects stretching from Asia to Guantanamo Bay.

Switzerland also allegedly knew of the secret prisons. A Swiss newspaper revealed that in late 2005 the country's intelligence services intercepted a fax from Egypt claiming that the US was operating a secret prison in Romania.

And earlier this year, the cabinet authorised plans to launch criminal proceedings over a suspected CIA flight that took a Muslim preacher kidnapped in Italy across Swiss airspace.

The latter case could have far-reaching consequences. As Marty released his report, 26 US citizens suspected of being CIA agents went on trial in absentia in Italy for the kidnapping.

The Muslim cleric who was on Washington's list of terrorist suspects says he was tortured after he was brought to Egypt after a so-called extraordinary rendition from Italy.

swissinfo with agencies

source: 9jun2007

Expert 'Has Proof' of US Terror Jails in EU

Reuters / Cape Argus (South Africa) 9jun2007

A European investigator says he has proof Poland and Romania hosted secret CIA prisons under a post-9/11 pact to hunt down and interrogate "high value" terrorist suspects wanted by the United States.

Swiss senator Dick Marty said Poland housed some of the CIA's most sensitive prisoners, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who says he masterminded the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US that killed almost 3 000 people.

"There is now enough evidence to state that secret detention facilities run by the CIA did exist in Europe from 2003-2005, in particular in Poland and Romania," Marty says in a report for the Council of Europe human rights watchdog.

Marty accused the former Polish president and the current and former presidents of Romania of having known and approved of the secret CIA operations on their soil.

In a preliminary report last year Marty said 20 mostly European countries colluded in a "global spider's web" of secret CIA jails and flight transfers of terrorist suspects stretching from Asia to Guantanamo Bay.

Marty said Germany and Italy had used "state secrecy" to obstruct investigations and his report could embarrass European governments, which have criticised the detention without trial of suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

Reacting to Marty's report, the European Commission called on Romania and Poland to hold urgent, independent investigations into the allegations and ensure any victims were compensated.

Commission spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing told a daily news briefing the European Union executive was "very concerned indeed" about the report, which was the culmination of a 19-month probe.

As Marty's report was issued, 26 Americans, almost all of them suspected CIA agents, went on trial in absentia in Italy, accused of kidnapping a Muslim man in Milan in 2003 and flying him to Egypt as part of Washington's extraordinary rendition policy.

source: 9jun2007

UK Provided Base for Rendition Flights, Says European Inquiry

ROBERT VERKAIK / Belfast Telegraph (Ireland) 9jun2007

The British island of Diego Garcia played a critical role in the CIA's secret prisons programme supported by America and its Nato allies after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, a report shows.

New intelligence from Europe's human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, confirms the existence of "rendition" flights, and identifies covert CIA detention centres in Diego Garcia, Poland and Romania between 2002 and 2005.

A year ago, the report's author, Swiss MP Dick Marty, named the UK as among 14 European countries which colluded with the CIA in operating secret flights delivering terrorist suspects for interrogation.

Mr Marty said that the CIA had been running interrogation centres in eastern Europe, Afghanistan and Thailand, and that more than 100 people " affecting Europe" had been sent to the so-called "black sites" since 2001.

The Swiss MP said it was clear, despite a lack of "firm evidence", that the authorities in several European countries "actively participated with the CIA in these unlawful activities". But it was the confirmation about use of Diego Garcia, leased to America by Britain, which caused the most concern among many international human rights groups.

Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of Reprieve, said: "Reprieve has been in possession of flight logs showing CIA planes flying in and out of the island for almost a year. A US general has twice said Diego Garcia is being used for secret prisons. Now, the Council of Europe confirms it. And what has the British Government done? Behaved like an ostrich with its head in the sand."

Yesterday's Council of Europe report offers more detailed analysis of testimonies from more than 30 serving and former members of intelligence services in the US and Europe.

It says only Bosnia and Herzegovina and Canada had "fully acknowledged their responsibilities with regard to the unlawful transfers of detainees" .The rendition programme was kept secret for years "thanks to strict observance of the rules of confidentiality laid down in the Nato framework" .

Rene van der Linden, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly president, said: "I don't know which is more shocking,- that European governments have been complicit, 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."

source: 9jun2007

Dick Marty:
'US Intelligence Policy Disastrous'

Interview with Swiss senator Dick Marty,
author of Council of Europe report on CIA activities in Europe

THIERRY OBERLE / Le Figaro (FRance) 8jun2007

How do you explain the Italian Government's position in the Abu Omar case?

It is paradoxical that members of the present Italian Government who criticized their predecessors when they were in opposition now hold the same posture as Mr Berlusconi's team. Indeed, the Prodi government has its hands tied. It is bound by secret agreements reached with the United States following 11 September. It claims that there are no state secrets, but it refuses to demand the extradition of the CIA agents implicated in the Abu Omar kidnapping in order to honour the Italian state's undertakings.

What does the second part of your inquiry reveal?

We focused our investigations on secret detention sites in Eastern Europe. We obtained evidence, on the basis of collated information, of the existence of illegal prisons in countries working closely with the United States, such as Poland.

We have details about the programme drawn up by the CIA. The plan, now officially suspended in Europe, sought to export the antiterrorist struggle beyond United States' borders in order to escape the legal constraints imposed by US law.

The subcontracting established in our countries reflects a lack of respect for the European partners. It is in an insulting attitude. The United States decided to pursue a war without rules against terrorism. The alleged terrorists kidnapped, then tortured and held in rogue states such as Syria had neither civil rights nor rights of war. They became even more dangerous, because they thus enjoyed sympathy in some circles. The mistake was not to treat them for what they are - criminal groups to be prosecuted using appropriate legislation. By kidnapping Abu Omar in Milan, the CIA sabotaged the antiterrorist struggle. Its policy has resulted in disaster.

Did France participate in the CIA programme?

The French intelligence services were notified of the US secret programmes, but they did not participate in them directly. Several sources have told us that the DGSE [General Directorate of External Security] knew what was being planned. There was no cooperation, because the CIA mistrusted France, and the latter has its own rather successful methods, since it warned the United States before 11 September of the imminence of a terrorist attack on its territory.

source: 9jun2007

Prober:
CIA Ran Secret Jails in Europe

ELAINE GANLEY / AP 9jun2007

The CIA ran secret jails in Poland and Romania to interrogate key terror suspects, shackling and handcuffing inmates, keeping some naked for weeks and reducing contact with the outer world to masked and silent guards, a European investigator said Friday.

The CIA called the report "distorted," but stopped short of denying the existence of prisons in the two countries — the agency said it does not discuss the location of its overseas facilities. Poland and Romania also vehemently denied the allegations.

"High value detainees" like self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and suspected senior al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah were held in Poland, said the report, which cited CIA sources. It said lesser detainees, but still of "remarkable importance," were taken to Romania.

Top officials in both countries knew of the detention centers, said the report by Swiss Sen. Dick Marty, a former prosecutor asked by the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, to investigate CIA activities after media reports of secret prisons emerged in 2005.

Marty did not rule out the CIA having more such prisons in Europe, but told reporters he did not include that in his report because his sourcing was insufficient. He accused Germany and Italy of obstructing investigations into secret detentions.

The report said its conclusions about the clandestine prisons relied on "multiple sources which validate and corroborate one another." Marty said his team spoke with "over 30 one-time members of intelligence services in the United States and Europe" as well as former or current detainees and human rights activists.

While conceding at a news conference that sources for the report were limited, Marty said they were "well placed," including some who "were implicated."

The alleged prisons were at the center of a "spider's web" of purported human rights abuses that Marty outlined in his initial investigation a year ago. That report focused on flights to spirit detainees to CIA hideouts with landing points in at least 14 nations.

He said he saw his reports as a "dynamic of truth" and hoped they will stir debate over what he charges were blatant abuses of human rights.

Clandestine prisons and secret CIA flights involving European countries would breach the continent's human rights treaties, although the Council of Europe has no power to punish countries. The council, which is separate from the European Union, was set up four years after World War II to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Europe.

Officials at the EU have said previously that they trust the denials of Poland and Romania about hosting secret jails.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano did not address whether there were secret detention centers, but he disputed the report's characterization of the agency's activities.

"When you see words like apartheid and torture in the document, that tells you it's biased and distorted," he said. "The CIA's counterterror operations have been lawful, effective, closely reviewed and of benefit to many people — including Europeans — in disrupting plots and saving lives. Our counterterror partnerships in Europe are very strong."

Following a meeting with President Bush in Gdansk, Polish President Lech Kaczynski told reporters: "I know nothing about any CIA prisons in Poland." His predecessor, Aleksander Kwasniewski, who was president in 2001-05, said: "I deny it. I've said as much several times."

Former Romanian President Ion Iliescu, mentioned in a list of ranking officials who allegedly had knowledge of the prisons, dismissed Marty's report as "stupid."

The report, which did not give specific locations for the alleged jails, provided graphic descriptions of conditions.

It told of prisoners being kept naked for weeks, sometimes attached to a "shackling ring" in cells. Buckets served as toilets. Masked guards who never spoke were the only contact for those consigned to four-month isolation regimes.

Cells, sometimes equipped with video cameras, were cramped and kept extremely hot or cold, the report said. Prisoners had to listen to irritating noises, including "torture music," rock or rap as well as "distorted" verses of the Quran, it said.

Bush acknowledged the existence of a secret detention program last September, when he announced the CIA had moved Sheikh Mohammed and 13 other suspected terrorists to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Marty's report said Poland and Romania hosted secret prisons under a special post-Sept. 11 CIA program to "kill, capture and detain" key terrorist suspects. It said the jails grew out of a secret pact within NATO shortly after the terror attacks on the U.S.

The pact "allowed the CIA to be able to move around Europe unobstructed, without undergoing any control and, especially, the NATO (security) protocol on secrecy was applied," Marty said.

In Italy, the first trial stemming from the CIA's detention program opened Friday without the presence of any of the 26 Americans charged with the 2003 kidnapping of a Muslim cleric suspected of terrorist ties. The trial has irritated U.S.-Italian relations and its opening coincided with Bush's arrival in Rome.

Associated Press writers John Leicester and Jan Sliva contributed to this report.

Rights Group Offers Grim View of C.I.A. Jails

DOREEN CARVAJAL / New York Times 9jun2007

PARIS, June 8 — In a report on Friday, the lead investigator for the Council of Europe gave a bleak description of secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency in Eastern Europe, with information he said was gleaned from anonymous intelligence agents.

Prisoners guarded by silent men in black masks and dark visors were held naked in cramped cells and shackled to walls, according to the report, which was prepared by Dick Marty, a Swiss senator investigating C.I.A. operations for the Council of Europe, a 46-nation rights group.

Ventilation holes in the cells released bursts of hot or freezing air, with temperature used as a form of extreme pressure to wear down prisoners, the investigators found. Prisoners were also subjected to water-boarding, a form of simulated drowning, and relentless blasts of music and sound, from rap to cackling laughter and screams, the report says.

The report, which runs more than 100 pages, says the prisons were operated exclusively by Americans in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2006. It relies heavily on testimony from C.I.A. agents.

Critics in Poland and Romania attacked Mr. Marty’s use of anonymous sources and issued categorical denials, as they have done repeatedly. Denis MacShane, a British member of Parliament and longtime critic of Mr. Marty, complained that the investigator “makes grave allegations to two European Union member states, Poland and Romania, without any proof at all.”

Tomasz Szeratics, a spokesman for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said: “We shall not make any comments on Dick Marty’s latest report until we receive it officially and analyze the evidence presented. The Polish position remains unchanged and it is very clear: There were no secret C.I.A. detention centers on the territory of the Republic of Poland.”

But Mr. Marty said at a news conference in Paris that anonymous testimony was backed by thousands of flight records showing prisoner transfers, including private planes linked to the C.I.A. that made 10 flights from Afghanistan and Dubai to the Szczytno-Szymany International Airport in Poland between 2002 and 2005.

That was the closest airport to a Soviet-era military compound where about a dozen high-level terror suspects were jailed, the report charges. The local authorities formed secure buffer zones around the jails, which were operated exclusively by Americans, Mr. Marty reported.

Lower-level prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq were held at a military base near the Black Sea in Romania, the report says. The Romanians were restricted to the buffer zone.

“Our Romanian officers do not know what happened inside those areas because we sealed them off and we had control,” the report cites a senior military agent as saying.

The details of prison life were given by retired and current American intelligence agents who had been promised confidentiality, the report says.

Their motives were varied, Mr. Marty said. “For 15 years, I have interviewed people as an investigating magistrate and I have always noticed that at a certain point, people with secrets need to talk,” he said.

Others justified the grim treatment, the reports said, saying, in one instance: “Here’s my question. Was the guy a terrorist? ’Cause if he’s a terrorist, then I figure he got what was coming to him.”

According to the report, suspects were often held for months with no contact except with masked, silent guards who would push meals of cheese, potatoes and bread through hatches.

When prisoners resisted, the report says, one investigator considered it a welcome sign. “You know they are starting to crack,” he said, “So you hold out. You push them over the edge.”

source: 9jun2007

Secret Prisons in 2 Countries
Held Qaeda Suspects, Report Says

STEPHEN GREY and DOREEN CARVAJAL / New York Times 8jun2007

LONDON, June 7 — Investigators have confirmed the existence of clandestine C.I.A. prisons in Romania and Poland housing leading members of Al Qaeda, contends a new report from the Council of Europe, the European human rights monitoring agency.

Dick Marty, the Swiss senator leading the inquiry, said in a recent interview that his conclusions were based on information from intelligence agents on both sides of the Atlantic, including members of the C.I.A. counterterrorism center. The report is to be released on Friday.

The report says the jails operated from 2003 to 2005. “Large numbers of people have been abducted from various locations across the world and transferred to countries where they have been persecuted and where it is known that torture is common practice,” it says.

These suspects included Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed master planner for the Sept. 11 attacks; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a member of the Hamburg, Germany, cell that organized the conspiracy; and Abu Zubaida, believed to have been a senior figure in Al Qaeda.

The report says that some of the information comes from trusted intelligence agents, who reported directly to former President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland and to two former Romanian leaders, Ion Iliescu and Traian Basescu.

The governments of Poland and Romania have denied the existence of such prisons, and officials could not be reached for comment on Thursday. Poland has criticized Mr. Marty and his investigators in the past for not traveling there to investigate the compound that the report describes as a prison.

The current president, Lech Kaczynski, has said that since he came to power in December 2005 “there has been no secret prison — I am 100 percent sure of it,” adding, “I am assured there never were any in the past either.”

Romania has repeatedly denied the presence of a secret prison there.

But last year, President Bush acknowledged for the first time that terrorism suspects had been held in C.I.A.-run prisons overseas, without specifying where.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said Thursday that, “While I’ve yet to see the report, Europe has been the source of grossly inaccurate allegations about the C.I.A. and counterterrorism,” and he added, “People should remember that Europeans have benefited from the agency’s bold, lawful work to disrupt terrorist plots.”

The report contends, “What was previously just a set of allegations is now proven.” An advance copy of the report was obtained by the British Channel 4 program “Dispatches” and provided to The New York Times.

Apart from the statements of what his report describes as former and serving intelligence agents, Mr. Marty quotes aviation records that he suggests provide detailed evidence of clandestine visits by C.I.A. planes to Szymany, in Poland; as well as the text of confidential military agreements signed between the United States and Romania that, he suggests, allowed the establishment of a C.I.A. base in the country.

Mr. Marty said the C.I.A.’s partners in establishing the secret prisons were the military intelligence agencies of both countries, which reported only to their presidents and defense ministers. Neither the countries’ prime ministers nor the two Parliaments’ intelligence committees were consulted or informed.

Prisoners in the secret jails were subjected to sleep deprivation and water-boarding, or simulated drowning, said Mr. Marty, who also said that the two jails had been divided into two categories.

The main C.I.A. jail was centered in a Soviet-era military compound at Stare Kjekuty, in northeastern Poland, where about a dozen high-level terrorism suspects were jailed, the report concludes. Lower-level prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq were held in a military base near the Black Sea in Romania, the report contends.

Jails were staffed entirely by the C.I.A., and local guards secured the perimeters, the report says. “The local authorities were not supposed to be aware of the exact number or the identities of the prisoners who passed through the facilities — this was information that they did not ‘need to know,’ ” the report said.

Mr. Marty said last month in an interview with the Swiss newspaper La Liberté that the report relied on information from disaffected C.I.A. agents and other intelligence officials on the other side of the Atlantic. Many of the agents said they were surprised that the prisons remained a secret for so many years. “They spoke to me because they found what was happening to be disgusting,” he was quoted as saying.

The report includes more specific conclusions than a study issued in June last year that contended that at least 14 European countries had accepted secret transfers of terrorism suspects by the United States. That report listed a web of landing points around the world that it said had been used by American authorities for its air network.

The new report contends that the C.I.A. took extraordinary measures to cover its activities. When C.I.A. jets flew to the Szymany airport in Poland, they used flight plans with “fictitious routes,” it says, giving no indication that the airport was the destination. Polish air traffic controllers — working with military intelligence — completed the cover-up, the report says.

Although the report singled out Poland and Romania, it said that it could not rule out the possibility that other European countries permitted these jails to operate.

Among its accusations, this report said NATO agreements, under the guise of waging a “war on terror,” provided the framework that the C.I.A. used to expand its European operations after Sept. 11.

The Marty report says it would be pointless for researchers to visit the Polish compound because “we have no doubts about the capability of those who would have removed any traces of the prisoner’s presence.”

Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington.

source: 9jun2007

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