Posted on 01/09/2006 6:36:35 PM PST by blam
Leaked fax 'shows Romania helped CIA interrogators'
By David Rennie in Brussels
(Filed: 10/01/2006)
An Egyptian government fax intercepted by Swiss intelligence offers the first "real evidence" that the US interrogated suspected terrorists at secret prisons in Eastern Europe, European politicians said yesterday.
The highly-classified fax, purportedly sent late last year by Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, to its embassy in London, was leaked to a Swiss newspaper on Sunday.
In it, Mr Gheit discussed the fate of 23 detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan who were apparently interrogated at the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in Romania on the Black Sea coast.
Egyptian diplomats had confirmed this information "from their own sources", the minister wrote, according to a Swiss intelligence summary leaked to the Sonntagsblick newspaper.
Egypt has not confirmed the authenticity of the fax. But MEPs described it as "a hugely significant step" when angry Swiss authorities confirmed the leak was based on a communication intercepted by a top secret surveillance system, known as Onyx.
The Bush administration has neither confirmed nor denied reports of a network of secret detention sites run by the CIA across the former Communist bloc.
The Romanian defence ministry "categorically" denied the content of the latest leaked Egyptian fax. According to Swiss media, the fax went on: "There are similar interrogation centres in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and in Bulgaria."
All European governments accused of hosting CIA "black sites" - where detainees have allegedly been tortured to avoid domestic restrictions on interrogation methods - have repeatedly denied the charges.
In the fax, Mr Gheit concluded: "Romanian authorities continue to deny the presence of secret prisons used by US intelligence to interrogate members of al-Qa'eda."
The commander of the Kogalniceanu air base, Dan Buciuman, told news agencies he had worked at the site since 1995 and had never seen any such activities. He said that the base was open to inspections.
But even without proof, the leak was further bad news for Romania, due to enter the EU as early as 2007 but facing growing opposition from existing members.
If proof emerges that Washington successfully persuaded poor, ex-Communist nations to breach European human rights conventions and laws, the backlash will be severe.
The Liberal Democrat peer and London MEP, Lady Ludford, said: "This is a piece of real evidence to back up the gut instinct many of us have that the denials of complicity we are hearing from EU member and candidate states cannot be relied upon."
Her Labour colleague, Claude Moraes MEP, said Romania, as a candidate nation with serious existing problems of corruption and poverty, was far more vulnerable to EU anger than nations which are already part of the EU, such as Poland.
Mr Moraes, the social affairs spokesman for British Labour MEPs, said: "There is a strong lobby in the parliament who feel that Romania has not met the entry criteria already, in fields like corruption, human rights abuses, and the behaviour of their justice system."
"Romania will never confess," he said. "But if they are caught red handed, they would risk at a minimum a delay to their entry to 2009, and at worst, they could see their entry suspended indefinitely."
Romania. Hmmm, they make good AKs and they help us with the bad guys. Allright in my book.
I can't believe this upside down world we live in. We have a sworn enemy that vows every chance they get to wipe all of western civilization off the map and the lefties want to play politics with finding them. I worked with a guy who once said when the turd hits the fan his first rounds will be into every leftist in range. He was certain that they were more dangerous than any invading force.
Exactly. The mad dog trying to bite you is much easier to defend against than the cancer killing you from the inside.
The Leftist are the quintessential 'fifth-column' who have already thrown their lot with America's enemies. You see it every day in print and on screen.
In our political spheres, our media, and our neighborhoods. They are the societal saboteurs waiting and ready to undermine democracy and collaborate with any enemy wanting to tear up and destroy America.
It's the leftists worldwide fighting their proxy war against US power, using the Islamic cults.
They have undermined Israel as well, for decades these cults have been allowed to roam the globe murdering innocents with impunity. And always Israel has been painted as the bad guy for fighting back.
When the US goes down, the UN takes over giving despots, socialist dictators and commies the power they seek.
I think its just awful how mean we are to terrorists all over the world...
Argh - are documents and programs only classified "SECRET" and "TOP SECRET" so the enemies of the USA will know which ones to leak?
They hate us.
Can we quit trying to play cat-n-mouse and just come out and say publically that we did it and if you oppose any of the nations that helped us we're adding you to the list of targets to bomb if we experience another 9/11 like attack.
The way we're going about it now makes it look like were trying to keep our enemies happy instead of keeping our true allies happy.
Let the EU sputter and blow. There ain't squat they can do about it.
L
The world's crazies are waiting and hoping for the Democrats to come back into power.
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