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A private jet that crash-landed almost one year ago in eastern Mexico carrying 3.3 tons of cocaine had previously been used for CIA "rendition" flights, a newspaper report said here Thursday, citing documents from the United States and the European Parliament. The plane was carrying Colombian drugs for the fugitive leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, when it crash-landed in the Yucatan peninsula on September 24, El Universal reported. The daily said it had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which "show that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer...

A federal appeals court, in a major victory for federal officials in pursuing individuals suspected of terrorism, ruled on Monday that foreign nationals may not sue U.S. government officers for money damages for capturing them and sending them to foreign countries where they were tortured. The decision by the Second Circuit Court in New York City, in a high-profile case seen as a significant legal test of the U.S. program of “special rendition,” also barred a claim specific to this case that U.S. officials seriously mistreated the detained individual while he remained in this country before being sent abroad involuntarily....

British Nazi-Al Qaeda Links? They are unmistakable and definite The Independent reported on July 10, 2005 that Al Qaeda may have hired a gang of “white mercenary terrorists� to carry out the London bombings.The Daily Mirror reported on July 16, 2005 that the four bombers may have been “duped� into carrying their bomb-laden backpacks on to the Underground and a bus. There is also intelligence that points to Italian neo-fascist, Pentagon Task Force 121, and Balkan Islamic fundamentalist links to the London bombers. French counter-terrorism official have reported that Balkans or Eastern European-origin military grade explosives were used in the...

WASHINGTON: In a makeshift prison in the north of Poland, Al Qaeda's engineer of mass murder faced off against his Central Intelligence Agency interrogator. It was 18 months after the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq was giving Muslim extremists new motives for havoc. If anyone knew about the next plot, it was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The interrogator, Deuce Martinez, a soft-spoken analyst who spoke no Arabic, had turned down a CIA offer to be trained in waterboarding. He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators...

<p>A human rights group alleges the U.S. has operated detention facilities for terror suspects aboard Naval vessels, according to a published report in a European newspaper Monday.</p> <p>A study compiled by Reprieve says the U.S. may have used as many as 17 vessels as 'prison ships' where terror detainees were subjected to interrogation as part of the acknowledged rendition program operated since 2001, The Guardian reported.</p>

Politicians and human rights groups want to go on board US-registered planes that are believed to be carrying terror suspects when they land in Norway for refueling. Planes believed to be chartered by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have landed at the Sola Airport outside Stavanger as many as 15 times since 2003, reports local newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad. It's also believed that the planes, officially owned by Aviation Specialties Inc of the US, have landed for refueling at airports in Bergen and Evenes as well. A report to the European Parliament in 2006 claimed that Aviation Specialties is a...

Hundreds of Iraqis and Afghans captured by British and American special forces were rendered to prisons where they faced torture, a former SAS soldier said yesterday. Ben Griffin said individuals detained by SAS troops in a joint UK-US special forces taskforce had ended up in interrogation centres in Iraq, including the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, and in Afghanistan, as well as Guantánamo Bay. (BREAK) He said he had not himself witnessed torture or mistreatment. But he added: "I have no doubt in my mind that non-combatants I personally detained were handed over to the Americans and subsequently tortured."

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is bracing for a diplomatic backlash after conceding it used British territory to transport suspected terrorists on secret rendition flights despite repeated earlier assurances the U.S. had not. U.S. officials have sought to quell the fallout by apologizing to Britain for what they said was an "administrative error." The admission, however, may reopen a bitter debate between the United States and its allies over how the fight against terrorism should be conducted and compromise future cooperation. "Mistakes were made in the reporting of the information," said Gordon Johndroe, National Security Council spokesman for President...

A federal judge on Wednesday tossed out a lawsuit that accused a Boeing Co. subsidiary of illegally helping the CIA secretly fly terrorism suspects to overseas prisons to be tortured. U.S. District Court Judge James Ware ruled that national security could be jeopardized if the lawsuit was allowed to go forward. CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden had earlier invoked the government's so-called "state secrets privilege," which lets intelligence agencies bar the use of evidence in court cases that jeopardize national security. In public and confidential statements filed with the court, Hayden urged the judge to dismiss the lawsuit filed by...

Bush administration lawyers on Tuesday cited national security concerns in urging a federal judge to toss out a lawsuit accusing an airplane company of illegally helping the CIA secretly fly terrorism suspects to overseas prisons to be tortured. The American Civil Liberties Union sued Jeppesen Dataplan Inc. last year in San Jose federal court, accusing the Boeing Co. subsidiary of aiding the CIA in the "forced disappearance, torture and inhumane treatment" of five suspected terrorists in violation of national and international laws. The ACLU alleges that San Jose-based Jeppesen knowingly participated in the program by supplying aircraft, crews and logistical...

America has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States. A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it. The admission will alarm the British business community after the case of the so-called NatWest Three, bankers who were extradited to America on fraud charges. More than a dozen other British executives, including senior managers at British Airways and BAE Systems, are under investigation by the US authorities...

Its anti-war films may be aimed at Bush, but what they're really destroying is storytelling MARK STEYN | November 15, 2007 | A few months back, Peter Berg attended a test screening of his new film in California — not Malibu or Beverly Hills, but out in farm country. The Kingdom is about FBI agents (Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, etc.) investigating a terrorist attack on Americans in Saudi Arabia, and finally, about two hours in, the star talent gets to kill a bunch of jihadists. As Entertainment Weekly described it, "the packed house went completely bonkers, erupting in cheers" —...

Bucharest and Brussels, 16 Nov. (AKI) - Romania, one two countries accused by Europe's top human rights watchdog of hosting secret CIA jails used to interrogate Islamist terrorism suspects, says it has written to the European Union executive denying the charges. The letter to the European Commission is a response to a request from EU justice and security commissioner Franco Frattini asking Romania and Poland - the other country implicated by the Council of Europe - for an explanation. A Romanian spokeswoman in Brussels, Doris Mircea, said that a committee of inquiry set up by the government concluded that the...

Excerpt - Washington - A Pakistani businessman suspected of playing a role in the 2002 brutal killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl died earlier this year, shortly after being interrogated by US and Pakistani intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Pearl, a Karachi-based correspondent for the Journal, was kidnapped on January 23 2002, and killed execution-style shortly after. The newspaper said Karachi businessman Saud Memon became a key suspect in the case because he owned a nursery where Pearl had been held captive. Citing an unnamed senior US law enforcement official, the report said Memon was interrogated by...

The wave of recent films set against the backdrop of war in Iraq and post-9/11 security has failed to win over film-goers keen to escape grim news headlines when they go to the movies, analysts say. In a break with past convention, when films based on real conflicts were made only years after the last shots were fired, several politically-charged films have gone on release while America remains embroiled in Iraq. Almost without exception, however, the crop of movies have struggled to turn a profit at the box-office and in many cases have received a mauling from unimpressed critics as...

LOS ANGELES - The wave of recent films set against the backdrop of war in Iraq and post-9/11 security has failed to win over film-goers keen to escape grim news headlines when they go to the movies, analysts say. In a break with past convention, when films based on real conflicts were made only years after the last shots were fired, several politically-charged films have gone on release while America remains embroiled in Iraq. Almost without exception, however, the crop of movies have struggled to turn a profit at the box-office and in many cases have received a mauling from...

The new political terror thriller "Rendition" has been released at a very opportune time. Now while many movies are bombing at the box office, this being one of them, the topic of torture in regards to terror suspects is one of those moral dilemmas that just won't go away. When is it okay to torture a terror suspect? I'm sure some of you have heard that question posed: if a suspect may know of a nuclear weapon set to go off in an American city within the next few hours, do we observe his (or her) human rights and ask...

If Tokyo Rose were alive today, she wouldn't get jail time - she'd get a three-picture deal. Throwing all caution and fiscal sanity to the winds, the Hollywood establishment is releasing a slate of anti-war films that do violence to the cause of American victory - and to the art form of film. Art is best served by an open competition of ideas. When only the anti-war left is allowed to make films in Hollywood and pro-American voices are excluded, the result is movies that are ideologically rigid, morally shallow and creatively sterile. Is it any wonder that recent anti-war...

Bella to Anti-War Movies: Show Me the Money!The independent pro-life film trounced Hollywood's anti-war movies in per-theater revenues, in spite of hostile mainstream media reviews.You won’t see this fun movie fact in any mainstream media outlets, but the little pro-life movie Bella, which just opened, beat the socks off of several anti-war/anti-American movies in opening weekend per-theater revenues. This despite the fact that Bella was panned by critics in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Variety and other mainstream outlets.(For an interesting article on how movie critics inject their politics into reviews, click here.) Here’s the breakdown. Bella opened...

Reese Witherspoon can't be pleased with the performance of her new movie "Rendition." It is a colossal bomb and will disappear as quickly as one of the movie's characters, courtesy of the evil CIA, of course. Once again, Hollywood is on a "let's make America look bad" binge. This is directly caused by loathing for the Bush administration, which the entertainment left sees as a combination of the Third Reich and Emperor Nero. Thus, a series of earnest "America is a human-rights violator" films are coming to a theater near you, and the odds are you will ignore them. Good....

UNITED NATIONS - A U.N. human rights expert is calling on the United States to prosecute or release suspects detained as "unlawful enemy combatants" and to move quickly to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Martin Scheinin, the U.N.'s independent investigator on human rights in the fight against terrorism, said in a report released Monday that he's concerned about U.S. detention practices, military courts and interrogation techniques. He urged the U.S. government to end the CIA practice of extraordinary rendition, in which terrorism suspects are taken to foreign countries for interrogation. Scheinin said he was also concerned about what he...

Critics have labeled the new movie “Rendition” a “political thriller.” Whether it thrills or not is subjective. But “political”? Absolutely. It’s merely the latest in an unbroken series of major films about the war on terror that range from those seeking to assure us that Islamist terrorism isn’t the threat we might think, to those depicting the terrorists as no worse than those who fight them — and by implication the American people as a whole. In 1942, Hollywood went to war. It began pumping out countless movies designed both to entertain the public and bolster its will to fight....

It doesn't matter how many Oscar winners are in front of or behind the camera — audiences are proving to be conscientious objectors when it comes to this fall's surge of antiwar and anti-Bush films. Both "In the Valley of Elah" and, more recently, "Rendition" drew minuscule crowds upon their release, which doesn't bode well for the ongoing stream of films critical of the Iraq war and the Bush administration's wider war on terror."Rendition," which features three Oscar winners in key roles, grossed $4.1 million over the weekend in 2,250 screens for a ninth-place finish. A re-release of "The Nightmare...

5 Myths About Rendition (and That New Movie) By Daniel Benjamin Saturday, October 20, 2007 With hearings in Congress, legal cases bouncing up to the Supreme Court and complaints from Canada and our European allies, the issue of rendition is everywhere. There's even a new, eponymously titled movie in a theater near you, starring Reese Witherspoon as a bereft wife whose innocent husband gets kidnapped and Meryl Streep as the frosty CIA chief who ordered the snatch. Like most covert actions and much of the war on al-Qaeda, the practice is shrouded in mystery -- and, increasingly, the suspicion that...

I was watching TNT a few days ago and a commercial for a new movie called "Rendition" was shown. It starts by showing a man being approached by what looks like a female police officer, then getting grabbed by two men and having a black hood thrown over his head. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see this is another "America is becoming a fascist country" jab at the War on Terror. Here's a wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendition_%28film%29 Here's the official website: http://www.renditionmovie.com/

Hollywood bankrolls another anti-anti-terrorism dog... Today I've seen repeated television ads for a new, as-yet-unrated movie called "Rendition" (the title tells you everything you need to know, of course). It stars Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep. From the ads, I deduce that lovely blonde Witherspoon is married to a strikingly handsome, swarthy guy—a total innocent, no doubt, who may belong to a purely peaceful religion. Apparently, this completely innocent swarthy fellow gets snatched by obviously evil U.S. government-types (Streep et. al.) who render him to a foreign country where he is held without charge and, most shockingly, not...

Have the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 put a lasting dent in civil liberties? The first of a series begins this week with a look at torture IN EVERY war, information is a weapon. In a “war against terrorism”, where the adversary wears no uniform and hides among the civilian population, information can matter even more. But does that mean that torture can sometimes be justified to extract information? The answer in international law is categorical: no. As laid down in treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and...

Witnesses testified about the policy of “extraordinary rendition” in the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants, as well as the potential impact on relations with European countries. Among the topics they addressed were the findings of a European Parliament report on forcible abduction of suspects who were later secretly transferred to European facilities for interrogation, foreign public opinion of U.S. policy and prisoner treatment, questions about the legality of the rendition practices, charges of the torture of detainees, and U.S. treaty obligations on the proper treatment of prisoners.

High-flying lifestyle of the CIA's rendition men · VIP status for agents who transfer terror suspects · New book reveals disturbing details Guardian In January 2004 a crew of CIA agents checked into the five-star Marriott Son Antem golfing resort in Palma for a well-deserved rest. The agents had just flown from Rabat in Morocco to Afghanistan and back to Algeria - a gruelling 8,000-mile journey - and were looking forward to luxuriating in the hotel's spa where, as the brochure put it, they could "journey to deep inner peace". But as the crew were basking in comfort at US...

Italian spy chiefs held over investigation into CIA rendition of terror suspect By Malcolm Moore in Rome (Filed: 06/07/2006) Two Italian spy chiefs were arrested yesterday on suspicion of helping the CIA to snatch an imam in Milan and fly him out of the country. Marco Mancini, the head of counter-espionage at the military intelligence agency Sismi, and Gustavo Pignero, the agency's chief official in the north of the country, were placed under investigation to examine whether they will face kidnapping charges. They are suspected of assisting American agents three years ago when they abducted Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also...

Europe’s opponents of the war on terror have a new half-inch thick document to add to their armory. On Wednesday, Swiss politician Dick Marty put together a well-publicized report for the Council of Europe condemning America for a policy of rendition. The United States is charged with globally establishing a “spider’s web” relationship with national intelligence networks for the purpose of apprehending terrorist suspects and taking them into secret custody. “Europe,” he explains, “already has a long and painful history of terrorism” and has been wise and experienced enough to have fought back “primarily by means of existing institutions and...

Update: In 2002 the WaPo called the International detention (prison) story vital - in 2005 they quote another official calling it a burden. In 2002 they informed people that Clinton initiated the practice of extraordinary rendition. In 2005, they made it look like a creation of George Bush. What changed?

Want to know why the MSM is hush hush about Algore's rants and anti-American talks overseas to Arabs and others? I went looking for the origin of "Extraordinary rendition" and came across some interesting reading. Seems Algore has a very short memory, but like most things Algore lies about, this was an eye opener

Strasbourg, 24.01.2006 – It is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware of the “rendition” of more than a hundred persons affecting Europe, according to Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly investigator Dick Marty, whose interim assessment was made public today in an information memorandum. Citing statements made by American officials and others, Mr Marty said there was “a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of ‘relocation’ or ‘outsourcing’ of torture”. He added: “It has been proved – and in fact never denied – that individuals have...

&nbsp; CIA-Backed Team Used Brutal Means To Break Up Terrorist Cell in Albania By ANDREW HIGGINS and CHRISTOPHER COOPER Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL &nbsp; &nbsp; TIRANA, Albania -- Ahmed Osman Saleh stepped off a minibus here in the Albanian capital in July 1998 and caught what would be his last glimpse of daylight for three days. As he paid the driver, Albanian security agents slipped a white cloth bag over Mr. Saleh's head, bound his limbs with plastic shackles and tossed him into the rear of a hatchback vehicle. Supervising the operation from a nearby car were ...

Britain's foreign secretary confirmed Tuesday that the U.S. has made at least three requests to make rendition flights through Britain since 1997. In a written statement, Jack Straw said government officials had completed a search of records and found two applications had been approved and one turned down. All three cases relate to requests in 1998 by the administration of then U.S. President Bill Clinton to transfer individuals directly to the U.S. A Foreign Office spokeswoman, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with government policy, said one additional case had been discovered since Straw revealed details of two...

The Taoiseach's office has refused to release any information it has about the CIA's 'extraordinary rendition' flights, on the grounds that to do so may compromise the security, defence or international relations of the state. The Council of Europe this weekend said that CIA jets travelling through Irish airports should be searched by gardai to ensure that prisoners are not being carried. A report published by the Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) last month had recommended that Gardai (Irish National Police) board such flights. Extraordinary rendition involves the abduction of suspected militants from foreign countries by members of the CIA...

"It turns out that renditioning was activated by President Bush's predecessor. In an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit, Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, said he developed the practice for none other than William Jefferson Clinton."

The US Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) controversial "rendition" program was launched under US president Bill Clinton, a former US counter-terrorism agent has told a German newspaper. Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned from the agency in 2004, has told Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system. "President Clinton, his national security adviser Sandy Berger and his terrorism adviser Richard Clark ordered the CIA in the autumn of 1995 to destroy Al Qaeda," Mr Scheuer said. "We...

The CIA's controversial program of having terrorist suspects captured and questioned on foreign soil began under President Bill Clinton, a former US agent says. Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned last year, told yesterday's issue of the German newspaper Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system. "President Clinton, his national security adviser Sandy Berger and his terrorism adviser Richard Clark ordered the CIA in the autumn of 1995 to destroy al-Qaeda," the newspaper quoted Mr Scheuer...

MILAN, Italy -- When the CIA decides to "render" a terrorism suspect living abroad for interrogation in Egypt or another friendly Middle East nation, it spares no expense. Italian prosecutors wrote in court papers that the CIA spent "enormous amounts of money" during the six weeks it took the agency to figure out how to grab a 39-year-old Muslim preacher called Abu Omar off the streets of Milan, throw him into a van and drive him to the airport.

BERLIN (AFP) - The CIA's controversial "rendition" program to have terror suspects captured and questioned on foreign soil was launched under US president Bill Clinton, a former US counterterrorism agent told a German newspaper. Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned from the agency in 2004, told Thursday's issue of the newsweekly Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system. " President Clinton, his national security advisor Sandy Berger and his terrorism advisor Richard Clark ordered the CIA...

The CIA's controversial "rendition" program to have terror suspects captured and questioned on foreign soil was launched under US president Bill Clinton, a former US counterterrorism agent told a German newspaper. Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned from the agency in 2004, told Thursday's issue of the newsweekly Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system. "President Clinton, his national security advisor Sandy Berger and his terrorism advisor Richard Clark ordered the CIA in the autumn of...

An Italian judge has issued European arrest warrants for 22 purported CIA operatives wanted for the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric, a prosecutor said Friday. Prosecutor Armando Spataro said the warrants allowed for the arrest of the suspects in any of the 25 European Union member countries. Italy issued warrants for the arrest of the 22 suspects within its own borders earlier this month. Prosecutors are seeking the suspects' extradition for their alleged involvement in the abduction of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr from a Milan street in February 2003. The suspects are all described as U.S. citizens. Prosecutors have...

LONDON (Reuters) - Rendition, the controversial practice of moving terrorism suspects from one country to another, is not new and European governments should not be surprised by it, Colin Powell said on Saturday. The former U.S. Secretary of State was speaking to the BBC after his successor, Condoleezza Rice was forced to defend the practice during a recent trip to Europe. The trip was overshadowed by allegations that the Central Intelligence Agency ran secret prisons in eastern Europe and covertly transferred suspects via European airports. "Most of our European friends cannot be shocked that this kind of thing takes place,"...

Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake German Citizen Released After Months in 'Rendition' By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, December 4, 2005; A01 In May 2004, the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany to pay an unusual visit to that country's interior minister. Ambassador Daniel R. Coats carried instructions from the State Department transmitted via the CIA's Berlin station because they were too sensitive and highly classified for regular diplomatic channels, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation. Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens,...

Last month, Italian authorities charged 13 CIA operatives with kidnapping an Islamic cleric known as Abu Omar. Now former Albanian intelligence officials reveal that the imam was once an informant valued by the CIA.

Italy probes possible CIA role in abduction By John Crewdson (Chicago) Tribune senior correspondent An Italian prosecutor investigating the apparent kidnapping of a suspected Islamic militant in the streets of Milan served military authorities this week with a demand for records of flights into and out of a joint U.S.-Italian air base in northern Italy. Italian newspapers have reported that the prosecutor, Armando Spataro, is investigating the possible role of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the disappearance of Osama Nasr Mostafa Hassan, better known as Abu Omar, a popular figure in Milan's Islamic community who vanished Feb. 17, 2003....

MILAN, June 25 -- For 19 American intelligence operatives assigned to apprehend a radical Islamic preacher in Milan two years ago, the mission was equal parts James Bond and taxpayer-financed Italian holiday, according to an Italian investigation of the man's disappearance. The Americans stayed at some of the finest hotels in Milan, sometimes for as long as six weeks, ringing up tabs of as much as $500 a day on Diners Club accounts created to match their recently forged identities, according to Italian court documents and other records. Then, after abducting their target and flying him to Cairo under the...

AP ENTERPRISE: U.S. Allies Resisting CIA's Secretive Role in Deporting Terror SuspectsBy Victor L. Simpson Associated Press Writer Published: Jun 19, 2005 MILAN, Italy (AP) - U.S. allies have begun to resist Washington's secretive role in spiriting away terror suspects: Italy is investigating the disappearance of one accused militant as a kidnapping, Sweden wrote rules to assert its authority over outside agents and Canada is holding hearings after one of its citizens was sent to Syria. At least two of the cases bear the hallmarks of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program - stepped up after Sept. 11 - in which...