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Europe 'aided US in CIA flights' Fourteen European states colluded
with the CIA in secret US flights for terror suspects, a report for
Europe's human rights watchdog concludes. The report says there is also evidence to back suspicions secret CIA camps are or were located in Poland and Romania - allegations both countries deny. Under the CIA policy of rendition, prisoners are secretly moved to states where they may have been tortured. The US admits to picking up terrorism suspects but denies sending them to Arab nations to face torture.The BBC's Tim Franks in Paris, where the report is being officially unveiled, says the charges are potentially explosive - but the difficulty remains in securing the proof. Mr Marty launched his inquiry for the Council of Europe in November amid a political outcry over media allegations of the existence of CIA detention centres in eastern Europe. He has drawn on air traffic logs, satellite photos and accounts of prisoners who say they were abducted. 'Spider's web' In an interim report in January, he said European governments were almost certainly aware of the CIA's secret prisoner flights via European airspace or airports. The new report says: "It is now clear - although we are still far from having established the truth - that 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." Spain, Turkey, Germany and Cyprus provided "staging posts" for rendition operations, while the UK, Portugal, Ireland and Greece were "stop-off points", the report says. It says Italy, Sweden, Macedonia and Bosnia allowed the abduction of residents from their soil. The most serious charges are levelled at Poland and Romania, where Mr Marty says there is enough evidence to support suspicions that CIA secret prisons were established. Although the Swiss senator says the US must bear responsibility for the flights, he says the programme could operate only with "the intentional or grossly negligent collusion of the European partners". The "spider's web" of US rendition flights is based on an "utterly alien" approach that breaches human rights, he concludes. 'Black sites' Media allegations on CIA jails broke last November, when the Washington Post newspaper said the intelligence agency had been running facilities in eastern Europe, Afghanistan and Thailand. It said more than 100 people had been sent to facilities known as "black sites" since they were set up following the 11 September 2001 attacks.European media reports have since alleged that the CIA has used several European airports for its programme of "extraordinary renditions". Under the highly secretive process, US intelligence agencies send terror suspects for interrogation by security officials in other countries, where they have no legal protection or rights under American law. Washington does not deny that terror suspects have been transferred for interrogation in other countries, but rejects accusations that they are being tortured. ---------------------------------------------------
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