CIA Abducted Suspects Says New Europe Probe

14/12/2005| IslamWeb

A European rights body yesterday backed allegations of secret CIA prisons, saying that the US appeared to have illegally abducted and detained individuals and that some European governments may have colluded.

A report to the Council of Europe concluded that "the information gathered to date reinforced the credibility of the allegations concerning the transport and temporary detention of detainees - outside all judicial procedure - in European countries."

The interim findings were presented by Dick Marty, a Swiss parliamentarian leading the probe by the 46-member rights and democracy body. "Legal proceedings under way in certain (European) countries appear to show that individuals were abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal assistance procedures," he said in a statement.

The US has come under growing international pressure over claims first made six weeks ago that the Central Intelligence Agency has illegally used European airports and airspace to transport suspected Islamic extremists between countries without legal process.

Reports have emerged of many hundreds of CIA flights, suspected of carrying undeclared prisoners across European airspace, since the 9-11 attacks.

As rapporteur of the Council of Europe's justice and human rights committee, Marty has been charged with determining the truth of the allegations - as well as claims that certain European governments may have breached the European convention on human rights by aiding the operation.

Citing anonymous informants from inside intelligence agencies as well as published press reports, Marty said that "the allegations that have been made are receiving day by day more weight." Substantiating evidence for the claims, he said, came from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice because, on a recent trip to Europe, she failed to deny categorically that detainees were transported or held in Europe.

PHOTO CAPTION

A plane suspected of being used by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) departing from Palma de Mallorca airport, Mallorca, Spain. (AFP)