Free Republic

The U.S. government acknowledged yesterday that the CIA operated "a very high number" of secret flights that stopped in Europe en route to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba according to members of the European Parliament visiting Washington, DC. A special commission has been investigating allegations that the CIA kidnapped and flew al-Qaida terror suspects to secret detention centers. A report preparer for the commission, Claudio Fava, said in Washington yesterday that State Department legal advisor John Bellinger acknowledged that some of the secret flights could have involved renditions. "Bellinger didn't deny there were a large number of CIA flights," Fava said. "That...

Up to 200 malnourished Iraqi detainees bearing signs of torture have been found in a secret prison in the basement of a Government building in Baghdad. The discovery of the prisoners came after American troops surrounded and took control of an Interior Ministry building in the Jadriya neighbourhood of the capital on Sunday night. When American forces arrived at the facility, officials there told them there were 40 detainees being held. As they moved through the building they discovered at least 200 prisoners, mostly Sunni Arabs and many in very poor health. The Americans had apparently been tipped off to...