Owl_Eagle
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
it was probably sarcasm)
Posted on 11/03/2005 9:52:38 AM PST by SpikeMike
The European Union has said it will examine reports that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) set up secret jails for terror suspects.A US newspaper said such prisons were set up in eight countries - some of them unnamed Eastern European states.
A rights group has suggested Romania and Poland might have been involved, but both states have issued denials.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it wants access to all foreign terror suspects held by the US.
Chief spokeswoman Antonella Notari said it was concerned about the fate of an unknown number of people captured as part of the Bush administration's war on terror and allegedly held at undisclosed places of detention.
Human rights laws
The centres - known as "black sites" - were set up in the wake of the 11 September attacks on the US in 2001, says the Washington Post.
Those with close links to the intelligence agencies say the US government sees a compelling case for keeping suspected al-Qaeda operatives incarcerated secretly on foreign soil.
That way the suspects are not able to contest their detention in US courts and can be interrogated over a long period, they say.
EU spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing told the BBC News website that its justice experts would be contacting European Union member states over the issue.
But he stressed that a formal investigation had not been launched.
Mr Roscam Abbing said that any such prisons would probably violate EU human rights laws.
"We have seen the reports and now we need to look into the issue and make contact with the appropriate authorities," he said.
"Experts from our Directorate-General Justice, Freedom and Security will make contact with those authorities."
Denials
According to the Washington Post, about 30 detainees, considered major terrorism suspects, were held by the CIA in the "black sites".
About 70 others have been delivered to intelligence services in countries like Egypt, Jordan and Morocco - some via the "black sites" - in a process known as "rendition" which was already public knowledge.
We aren't detaining terrorists, or interrogating them, or doing anything else with them Outgoing Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski
US-based Human Rights Watch has said that a study of international air flight data, covering the summer of 2003, appears to point to a location in Romania and a former military airport in north-east Poland.
The claims have prompted a flurry of denials.
Romanian Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu said: "There are no CIA bases in Romania".
Poland saw the swearing in of a new government on Monday. Former Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said: "We aren't detaining terrorists, or interrogating them, or doing anything else with them."
The BBC's Jan Repa says the insistence by Polish officials that they have not detained prisoners at America's request theoretically leaves open the possibility that prisoners have been detained on Polish soil by the Americans themselves.
Meanwhile Czech Interior Minister Frantisek Bublan said the US had asked his country to take some of the prisoners being held by the Americans at the Guantanamo base who had so far not been charged with any crime.
He said the request had been rejected amid security fears, adding that 10 other countries had been approached and had rejected the request.
High-profile suspects
The Washington Post also named Afghanistan and Thailand as hosts of the secret jails, all of which are now said to have closed. Thailand has issued a denial.
The newspaper said it had not published the names of Eastern European countries involved in the programme at the request of senior US officials, who had argued that doing so could damage counter-terrorism efforts and lead to retaliation by terrorists.
The whereabouts of high-profile terror suspects is a closely guarded secret in Washington, says the BBC's Pentagon correspondent Adam Brookes.
The fate of such men as 11 September suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is simply a mystery, our correspondent says, but there has long been an assumption that they are held in secret facilities outside the US other than Guantanamo Bay.
If they are secret, how come everybody knows about them?.......
People need to be procecuted for this leak if this is true...What would be really funny is if someone leaked a lie to the MSM to send everyone into a tizzy!
EU is pretty gullible. They believe everything al Jazeera says.
Does the EU even know the meaning of the word secret? 'Black sites' and 'Black' research programs have existed for years,,,and now the EU wants to 'look' at this? Seems to me the EU should be casting their eyes towards Paris right about now.
Owl_Eagle
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
I Euronate on the EU but I won't paeon them.
Oh, sorry, it's not al Jazeera... It's the Washington Post. Well, same thing.
Meanwhile deep in the bowels of an aircraft carrier an interrogator reads the news to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and explains that the chances of him being found are remote at best.
Really? I coulda swore they congregated in and around the Paris, France area.
As the muslim riots in Paris continue to spread, the eurinals may be interested in looking into our "secret jails" for pointers.
I think that's the first step to becoming a suicide bomber,,,they do something 'shameful' and then exonerate themselves by blowing up their disease-ridden body parts in the name of 'martyrdom' so that allah will reward them with more French hookers - and virgin hookers at that!
Where is the senate investigation about this leak? Why does the press get away with "outing" the CIA? How many lives are now in danger because of this careless act of treason? It is no wonder that most of the American people see our elected officials as pompous asses and our laws laughable and selectively enforced.
This is insane. Why is nobody outraged that this "secret" information has been outed?
"Why is nobody outraged that this "secret" information has been outed?"
Because it is obvious it was nobody in the Bush administration.
Red Cross Seeks Access to CIA Prisons
By REUTERS (by NYTIMES)
Published: November 3, 2005
GENEVA (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on Thursday for access to all foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States after a report of a covert CIA prison system for al Qaeda captives.
Skip to next paragraph Reuters
The Washington Post said on Wednesday the CIA had been hiding and interrogating inmates at a secret facility in Eastern Europe, among so-called ``black sites'' in eight countries under a global network set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
``We are concerned at the fate of an unknown number of people captured as part of the so-called global war on terror and held at undisclosed places of detention,'' Antonella Notari, chief ICRC spokeswoman, told Reuters in response to a question.
``Access to detainees is an important humanitarian priority for the ICRC and a logical continuation of our current work in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay,'' she added.
Also in Geneva, the United Nations' Human Rights Committee said it had received two letters and a report from the United States which it hoped would address the issue of detainees being held outside the country.
``It was in our request to the United States. We are going to see how they answer,'' committee chairwoman Christine Chanet for France told journalists, saying the committee had yet to study the documents.
The European Commission said on Thursday it would look into media reports naming two east European countries as allowing the CIA (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency) to hold al Qaeda suspects outside of any national or international legal jurisdiction.
EU CHECKING
Friso Roscam Abbing, spokesman for European Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini, said the EU executive would check the reports with Poland, a new member state, and Romania, which is due to join the European Union in 2007.
The U.S.-based campaign organization Human Rights Watch said earlier it had indications the two were hosting CIA prisons.
Both denied the allegations on Thursday and the Commission's Abbing said it had no knowledge of any such prisons at present.
``What I think we will do is to at a technical level... check what the truth is in these stories. We will check the accuracy of those reports,'' he told a daily briefing.
He said the treatment of prisoners was not a matter of EU competence but any secret prisons would not appear compatible with the EU's non-binding Charter of Fundamental Rights or the so-called Copenhagen political criteria for EU membership, which include upholding the rule of law and respect for human rights.
He said the Commission's decision to check the reports did not signal any formal investigation, nor would it be appropriate for Frattini to personally question government leaders in the countries concerned.
Carroll Bogert, associate director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, outlined earlier what had led the group to believe Poland and Romania were hosting the alleged CIA prisons.
She said the group based its assumption on flight logs, such as a Boeing 737 having made trips to eastern Europe from Afghanistan and countries in the Middle East.
One flight log showed that a plane went from Kabul to northeastern Poland on September 22, 2003. That was the same month that ``we know several CIA prisoners who were held in Afghanistan were transferred out of Afghanistan and the next day the same plane landed at a military airport in Romania,'' Bogert said.
The Romanian airfield had been closed to the public and the media for some time, she added.
The Washington Post said it had not published the names of the European countries at the request of senior U.S. officials who said disclosure could disrupt counterterrorism efforts or make the host countries targets for retaliation.
U.S. officials declined direct comment on the report, which was likely to stir up fresh criticism of the Bush administration's treatment of terrorism suspects.
Russia's FSB security service and Bulgaria's foreign ministry both denied such facilities existed on their territory as did Thailand, which was named in the Washington Post report.
The U.N.'s Human Rights Committee monitors a 1976 treaty on basic freedoms. The regular report on compliance filed by the United States last Friday was some seven years overdue.
The committee, which will examine the report next July at a public session, said last year it had specifically asked that the issue of detention centers be included.
The ICRC, a neutral humanitarian organization, monitors whether prison conditions and treatment of detainees comply with the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which lay down rules for treating those captured in international armed conflicts.
That the Red Cross wants complete access has been the lead item on BBC World Service all morning.
The EU can go pound sand!! Why don't they look in their own back yard for the Islamofacisists that want to steal Europe from them?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.