Posted on 11/16/2007 7:02:04 AM PST by Grzegorz 246
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 allegations that Romania hosted such secret prisons between 2003 and 2005 were unfounded.
"No person was kept illegally as a prisoner within Romanian jails and no illegal transfer of detainees passed through Romanian jails and illegal transfer of detainees passed through Romanian territory," Mircea said.
Poland has not replied to Frattini. In June, however, former Polish president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, denied there had been any kind of secret CIA prisons in Poland or that there had been any discussion of the matter.
The Council of Europe report, led by Swiss senator Dick Marty, implicated 14 countries - including Italy - of collusion in a 'global spider's web' involving detentions and illegal flight transfers of terrorism suspects, known as 'extraordinary renditions'.
The Council of Europe report in June said there was enough evidence to support suspicions that CIA secret prisons were established in Poland and Romania.
Media allegations on CIA jails broke last November, when the Washington Post newspaper said the intelligence agency had sent more than 100 people to secret jails known as "black sites" that were set up following the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States.
A separate enquiry by the European Parliament into 'extraordinary rendition' in January concluded that in the four years following al-Qaeda's 11 September 2001 attacks on the US, the CIA carried out 1,245 covert flights via Europe, the report said.
Governments had turned a 'blind eye' to secret US flights carrying terrorism suspects across Europe, the report found. It highlighted insufficient parliamentary oversight of European security services.
It depends. If the American nation would stand with its back to the wall - you will be as strong as you were 60 years ago. If America is bound to extinguish some terrorism fires - no way. A democracy only can push through wars if it is acting in defense. For offensive wars there is usually too little patience among its voters. A full scale war with a nation willing and ready to fight (like with Iran i.e.) after a preemptive strike is likely to turn out as a complete disaster to the US, since it takes more than 4 years and 50.000 coffins to win it. If there was no compulsive need for such a mission that is understood by the American public every US administration in responsibility for it will be slaughtered. The outcome of this is complete surrender after 4 years since your nation is structurally not able to win lossy offensive wars due to its democratic system. Common people prefer peace and prosperity to death and decay. This should be quite easy to understand.
Sorry, I just don’t see it that way.
Vorsicht— Hund
The European Union is enemy of freedom in general.
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