Report
Details CIA Prisons In Europe
By Joe Kay
09 June, 2007
World
Socialist Web
A
report released Friday by the Council of Europe confirms that the CIA
has used interrogation centers in Europe, including in Romania and Poland,
to secretly hold and torture prisoners captured in Afghanistan, Iraq
and other parts of the globe.
The report is the most detailed
description of a secret program initiated by the US government, with
the collaboration of Europe. In addition to Poland and Romania, many
European and other powers have taken part in the program, including
Germany, Italy, Britain and Canada. An earlier report from the council
released in June 2006 provided some information on the program, and
singled out 14 European governments for complicity.
The report was prepared by
Dick Marty, a rapporteur for the council, which is tasked with monitoring
human rights in Europe. It was issued the same day as a trial began
in Italy against CIA agents suspected of involvement in capturing one
of the prison network’s victims (see today’s article on
CIA trial in Italy).
“What was previously
just a set of allegations is now proven,” the report began. Providing
a portrait of lawlessness on an international scale, it noted, “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. Others have been
held in arbitrary detention, without any precise charges leveled against
them and without any judicial oversight—denied the possibility
of defending themselves. Still others have simply disappeared for indefinite
periods and have been held in secret prisons, including in member states
of the Council of Europe, the existence and operations of which have
been concealed ever since.”
The CIA program examined
by the report is merely one part of this broader system of detention
and abuse (including Guantánamo Bay as well as the network of
prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan). “We believe we have shown that
the CIA committed a whole series of illegal acts in Europe by abducting
individuals, detaining them in secret locations and subjecting them
to interrogation techniques tantamount to torture,” Marty wrote.
The newest report by the
Council of Europe is based on extensive testimony from current and former
intelligence officials in Europe and the US. Marty also obtained raw
data on flights in Europe in order to trace the movements of CIA planes
transporting prisoners.
Known within the US government
as the “High-Value Detainee Program,” the system of secret
detention was established shortly after the attacks of September 11,
2001. A presidential directive signed at that time substantially increased
the powers of the CIA, exploiting the “war on terror” to
establish a network of prisons that could be used as part of future
wars planned by the US.
In addition to Poland and
Romania, the report indicates that there is some evidence that detention
or processing centers were also located for some time in Diego Garcia,
which is overseen by the UK but houses a US military base, and Thailand,
which the report says was the location of the first CIA “black
site” interrogation center.
But as the program was developed,
it was Poland and later Romania that were the principal countries used
by the CIA. In developing contacts with these countries—which
were selected in part because of their economic dependency and their
eagerness to establish relations with the US—the CIA sought to
ensure unilateral control over the prisoners. The US intelligence agency
established direct ties with the military of these countries, bypassing
all but top-level civilian officials.
Of those who had knowledge
of the program, the report singles out several high-ranking officials,
including former Polish President Aleksander Kwansniewski and former
Romanian President Ion Iliescu.
Agreements were reached with
these countries in order to allow the CIA to operate outside any legal
constraints of the host country. “I consider that the stated US
policy has, in fact, on the pretext of guaranteeing security, intentionally
created a framework enabling it to evade all accountability,”
the report stated. The CIA sought deliberately to remove itself from
“conventional democratic controls in the foreign countries.”
While those originally transferred
to Poland were alleged top officials in Al Qaeda, including Abu Zubaydah
and Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, the types of prisoners broadened as the program
expanded. The report states that among those imprisoned in Romania were
“leaders of branches of suspected ‘support networks’
for the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan” and “suspected
leaders of terrorist factions in the Middle East,” in addition
to leaders of the Taliban. These categories are broad enough to include
anyone considered harmful to US interests in the Middle East.
As evidence of its assertion
that secret CIA prison camps were operated in Poland and Romania between
2002 and 2005, the report cites the testimony of intelligence officials
and the fact that flight recordings for CIA planes tend to correspond
with the capture of significant prisoners by the US.
In addition, the team that
prepared the report analyzed “hundreds of pages” of aeronautical
data, which demonstrates that “in the majority of cases these
CIA flights were deliberately disguised so that their actual movements
would not be tracked or recorded....” Dummy flight plans were
filed in order to disguise the destination of CIA-operated planes, an
example of which can be found here.
The report also devotes a
significant amount of space to depicting the conditions faced by prisoners
caught up in the program. It describes truly horrendous conditions of
isolation, psychological abuse and torture.
The conditions were designed
deliberately to dehumanize prisoners and destroy their will. According
to the report, prisoners were taken to their cell by “strong people
who wore black outfits, masks that covered their whole faces, and dark
visors over their eyes.” They were stripped and kept naked for
weeks. A common feature at the beginning of the prison time was a four-month
isolation regime. “During this period of over 120 days, absolutely
no human contact was granted with anyone but masked, silent guards.”
Physical torture was also
used. Prisoners were subjected to extreme temperatures, regulated by
airflow from a single hole at the top of a prisoner’s cell. “There
was a shackling ring in the wall of the cell, about half a metre up
off the floor,” the report states. “Detainees’ hands
and feet were clamped in handcuffs and leg irons. Bodies were regularly
forced into contorted shapes and chained to this ring for long, painful
periods.”
In addition, prisoners were
subjected to sensory deprivation and overload. They were at times bombarded
with loud music or other sounds, including “distorted verses from
the Koran, or irritating noises—thunder, planes taking off, crackling
laughter, the screams of women and children.”
Marty condemns in particular
the role of European governments in facilitating the CIA program and
attempting to obstruct the council’s investigations. “Many
governments have done everything to disguise the true nature and extent
of their activities and are persistent in their uncooperative attitude,”
the report states. “Some European governments have obstructed
the search for the truth and are continuing to do so by invoking the
concept of ‘state secrets.’ ” Within the later category,
the report singles out in particular Germany and Italy. Many countries,
as well as NATO, did not respond to questionnaires distributed by the
investigation.
A further section of the
report details the case studies of captured individuals that highlight
the complicity of different governments, including Khaled El-Masri (Germany),
Abu Omar (Italy) and Maher Arar (Canada).
European governments continue
to deny involvement in or knowledge of the CIA interrogation program.
The current Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, issued a statement that
Poland has never housed a prison, and a similar statement was released
by former Romanian President Iliescu.
Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesperson,
claimed not to have read the report. Without explicitly denying its
contents, he declared, in what amounted to a veiled threat, “Europe
has been the source of grossly inaccurate allegations about the CIA
and counterterrorism. People should remember that Europeans have benefited
from the agency’s bold, lawful work to disrupt terrorist plots.”
Bush himself admitted in
September 2006 the existence of the CIA prisons, at which he said an
“alternative set of procedures” were used to interrogate
detainees. However, he provided no information on where the prisons
were located.
At the time, Bush insisted
that there were no more prisoners at the secret facilities. However,
he also insisted that the program was necessary and would have to be
continued. In November 2006, Congress passed the Military Commissions
Act with bipartisan support, granting the president wide latitude to
authorize the CIA to use abusive interrogation methods. Last week, the
New York Times reported that Bush is preparing to issue a new directive
that will permit the CIA to continue abusing prisoners in countries
around the world.
The
full report of the Council of Europe is available here
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