Worldwide Search for US-American Torturers
From ECOTERRA Intl.
The Worldwide Search for the Anglo/American Torturers is on:
- check "military islands" like Diego Garcia
- check US warships
- check any young "democrazy", where the torturers get practical lessons by the US military using real people as guinea pigs.
- check any old "democrazy", where the hidden governance has been established with perfidity since long.
Any dictatorship, where the top-shot at least takes responsibility, is better than today's sick governance-systems run by networks of maniac and paranoid and often enough incorporated psychopaths.
US on Defensive as Reports of 'Secret Torture Flights' Pile Up Agence France-Presse
Friday 02 December 2005
The United States was facing mounting embarrassment as allegations continued to emerge of a shadowy network of both secret prison camps and CIA "torture flights" carrying undeclared detainees through European and other countries.
In the latest such report the British newspaper The Guardian said Thursday it had seen navigation logs showing that more than 300 flights operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency had passed through European airports, as part of a network that could be involved in the clandestine detention and possible torture of terrorism suspects.
The claims have emerged since November 2, when the Washington Post newspaper reported that "black site" prisons were, or had been, located in eight countries including Thailand, Afghanistan and "several democracies in Eastern Europe" since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
The paper also said that the CIA had used planes to send more than 100 suspects to the hidden global internment network, not including prisoners picked up from Iraq.
Its report did not name the European countries involved, but Poland, a European Union member, has denied being one of them, as has Romania.
There have been widespread reports that the alleged network could involve both the transport and torture of undeclared detainees.
The EU has meanwhile threatened sanctions against any of its member states found to have been operating such prisons, or allowing their territory to be used for the transport of the phantom detainees.
The United States on Wednesday promised a timely and forthright reply to the EU concerns.
In Thursday's report the Guardian said flight logs its reporters had seen showed that CIA planes visited Germany 96 times and Britain 80 times, though when charter flights were added this figure rose to more than 200. France was only visited twice and Austria not at all, the newspaper said.
The logs also showed regular trips to Eastern Europe, including 15 stops in the Czech capital Prague.
"Only one visit is recorded to the Szymany airbase in north-east Poland, which has been identified as the alleged site of a secret CIA jail," The paper added.
Among other reports relating to alleged secret flights through European countries:
* The Danish transport ministry said in September that it had recorded at least 20 illegal over-flights by CIA planes since 2001.
* The Hungarian government said last month that two CIA craft had landed at Budapest airport in the past two years.
* Iceland said it was not satisfied with Washington's response to allegations that CIA planes had landed on its territory at least 67 times since 2001.
* Portuguese Foreign Minister Diogo Freitas do Amaral said he would report to parliament on December 13 on reports of illicit CIA flights passing through the country, including three incidents last March.
* Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said his government would be looking into reports that US planes had both flown over and landed in his country on secret missions that could be linked to transports of undeclared terrorism suspects.
Planes allegedly operated by the CIA have also been spotted at airports in Finland, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain and Sweden as well as Morocco.
Go to Original
http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_28531.shtml
Rice to Address Secret Prison Issue in Europe Deutsche Welle
Friday 02 December 2005
When she heads to Europe for a five-day visit next week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will face a barrage of questions about alleged secret CIA prisons for terror suspects.
As Condoleeza Rice prepares for a trip to Germany, Romania, Ukraine and Brussels for a NATO meeting, the US is under mounting pressure to come clean about reports of "black site" prisons in Europe.
Media allegations of an underground network of secret prisons and possible torture of undeclared terrorism suspects show no sign of letting up.
Brussels has threatened sanctions against any EU states found to have been operating these clandestine jails or allowing their territory to be used for the transport of "ghost detainees," while a number of EU parliamentarians have accused European leaders of failing to call the Bush Administration to account.
Statement Expected
But speaking in Washington after meeting the Secretary of State Thursday, Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said Rice intends to make a statement on the row when she visits Europe next week.
Ireland is among the countries concerned that its airports were used by the Central Intelligence Agency in transporting prisoners to undisclosed European destinations.
Ahern said Rice had told him she would answer a formal query from the European Union on the reports, but said the top US envoy would also make it "quite clear that as far as Americans are concerned, they have not infringed any international human rights laws in relation to this."
Going on the Offensive
On Thursday, the State Department released a letter from Britain asking, as acting EU president, for clarification of the media reports "suggesting violations of international law" in its detention and transport of terror suspects to foreign states for interrogation, which is known as rendition.
Spokesman Sean McCormack defended the US renditions policy Wednesday.
"As a theoretical legal matter, I understand the practice of renditions is one that is recognized by the international system," he said.
A Priority Issue
Rice's tour, beginning Monday, will also include a get-acquainted meeting with the new German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which is expected to focus on repairing the two countries' damaged relations after the Iraq war.
The secret prisons controversy is the latest test of the still-fragile trans-Atlantic relationship, and has fanned the flames of Europe's concern at US detainee policies as evidenced in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick will be preceding Rice to Germany, meeting next Wednesday and Thursday with Merkel and members of parliament.
In Intelligence, One Has Only Temporary Allies
By Manuelle Tilly
Le Nouvel Observateur
Friday 02 December 2005
Interview with a former French intelligence officer, who wishes to remain anonymous.
Is it really surprising to learn that the CIA has secret prisons for conducting any kind of interrogations it wants to?
No, there's nothing surprising about that. Many people know about it. But we are not talking about prisons, exactly. These are locales where people can by interrogated by methods not used under common law. All methods are used there, especially chemical methods. The CIA's system is not painful torture. There were places suspected of harboring this type of locale, for example "Camp Bond Street" in Kosovo. The CIA uses existing infrastructures. It has reserved areas in military installations, as it does in camps in Afghanistan. Prisoner transfers occur for practical reasons. The prisoners are arrested and transferred by plane for interrogation. In the war against terrorism, the CIA didn't take enough precautions, because they imagined they had everyone's assent, and now it ends up that people know about their activities.
Three hundred airplanes used by the CIA that could have conveyed Islamists to secret prisons landed in Europe, including two in France. Would you say the French secret services knew about it?
If the planes landed on specific bases, our secret services knew about them. There are two possible bases in France. If the CIA landed there, our secret services knew that, but did not necessarily know what there was in the planes.
For example, when I was still serving, the French airplane "Médor" did a tour of French embassies to transport DGSE [French secret service] secret materiel. But the countries in question didn't know what the airplane carried. When a sensitive airplane lands in France, it happens the same way.
Finally, you mustn't forget that the secret services are public services that execute governmental orders without talking about it. Consequently, if politicians have given their approval, they know what the airplane carries.
If these prisons really exist, as I believe they do, those guilty of complicity are not the intelligence services who receive the orders: it's the politicians. The government commands: functionaries execute those orders. If the investigation goes somewhere, which would surprise me, we shouldn't be questioning secret service functionaries, but rather the authorities who give the orders.
How does the relationship between secret services work, specifically between the DGSE and the CIA?
Every country has an office in charge of international relations. The DGSE is the only agency authorized to exchange information with the CIA. But in France, that gets complicated when you add in the European Union.
In the framework of the war against terrorism, in the Schengen Treaty area, police forces are tempted to exchange information directly - that is, bilaterally - although, according to the norms, everything should be made available to all.
With regard to intelligence, you never tell all. You never give away sources. You have no friends, only temporary allies. When you provide a fact, you provide a true, certain and useful fact for a particular point.
Networks for the multinational exchange of intelligence are being setting up, for example at the NATO level. Each nation feeds the network through the intermediary of national information cells (NIC). For example, NATO has different cells of diverse nationalities. NICs furnish allies with intelligence considered communicable.
With respect to terrorism, only synthesized intelligence is exchanged: an intelligence document that summarizes all the intelligence - military, police, economic - from all sources, without citing them.
Sometimes, you need bilateral intelligence. For example, if the Americans have a concern with ramifications for Spain, France, and Belgium, the CIA will contact the Spanish, French, and Belgian governments, which each give what they want to give, without necessarily consulting one another. Intelligence networks form at global, continental, and national levels, also by type of interest.
Every problem occurs in the context of global phenomena, with a political, financial and macro-economic background, including arms and drug trafficking.
Consequently, before giving assistance in the domain of terrorism, governments take into account their own interests. In France, we are not officially engaged in Iraq, but we are directly involved with the Americans in Afghanistan. Consequently, we certainly have an interest in opening our bases to the American secret services.
Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120205H.shtml
Blair faces allegations of complicity in torture
By Colin Brown and Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 02 December 2005
Pressure is mounting on the White House to answer claims that the CIA is using UK airports to fly terrorist suspects for torture in secret prisons in Europe. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office lawyer who resigned over the Iraq war, warned Tony Blair last night that he cannot duck the questions crowding in about the flights which could mean Britain has been complicit in torture.
In The Independent, Ms Wilmshurst, now a fellow of Chatham House, said the Prime Minister could not justify breaking the international convention against torture by saying the "rules of the game have changed" because of the war on terrorism.
Britain's European partners stepped up the pressure for details to be disclosed about hundreds of secret flights by CIA-operated jets.
Sarah Ludford, a British member of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee, said: "I am not at all reassured that there is sufficient determination by [member states] to establish the truth," she said. "The allegations are now beyond speculation. We now have sufficient evidence involving CIA flights. We need to know who was on those flights, where they went."
EU leaders are ready to follow up their request to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, to challenge the White House. On Tuesday he wrote to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, calling for details of the secret flights to be revealed. Mr Straw said yesterday he had raised the issue with Ms Rice. She is likely to face direct challenges about flights when she visits Brussels next week.
This month, prisoners were reported held in two eastern European countries, believed to be Romania and Poland, brought there on flights the CIA calls "extraordinary rendition". Michael Ratner, director of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, said: "It's a secret. No one knows what happens in the rendition process or in the gulag of secret CIA hellholes."
But journalists and campaigners have tracked some of what is happening by monitoring the flight records of planes known to be used by the CIA. Plane-spotters have helped compile information on the aircraft - including one Gulfstream originally identified as N379P but now renumbered N44982 - and their movements.
Twenty-six planes apparently used by the CIA have made 307 flights in Europe since 9/11. Of these, 94 had stops in Germany and 76 in Britain, at Luton, Glasgow, Prestwick and Northolt. The UK government has denied prisoners are being held on a US-operated base on British-owned Diego Garcia.
John Sifton, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, which has released a list of 26 "ghost detainees" held by the US without access to lawyers, said probably only a few of the 307 flights involved moving prisoners. Most, he said, were likely transferring CIA personnel. "It's impossible to know for sure how many are innocent," he said.
There is a debate in the US about whether torture should be permitted for extracting information. A Bill tabled by Senator John McCain to outlaw torture passed the Senate but is being opposed by Vice President Dick Cheney, who wants special exemption for CIA agents.
Increasingly, politicians in Britain and Europe are showing a determination to find out whether the US has "black sites" in eastern Europe where harsh treatment of suspected terrorists would raise fewer questions. Alexander Alvaro, a German Liberal MEP and member of the European civil liberties committee, said Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, would raise the issue in talks with George Bush. "I think our Chancellor will point out that Germany would not tolerate secret camps in Europe."
There are growing calls at Westminster for Mr Blair to block the CIA flights. The Labour MP Harry Cohen said: "It is not for the UK Government to connive in and facilitate people disappearance. The Government's blind-eye approach to enforcing the law is not acceptable."
An all-party group to challenge the UK and US Governments over the transport of suspected terrorists, was launched yesterday at Westminster. It will be chaired by Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, former Labour foreign affairs minister, Chris Mullin, and Sir Menzies Campbell, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Pressure is mounting on the White House to answer claims that the CIA is using UK airports to fly terrorist suspects for torture in secret prisons in Europe. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office lawyer who resigned over the Iraq war, warned Tony Blair last night that he cannot duck the questions crowding in about the flights which could mean Britain has been complicit in torture.
In The Independent, Ms Wilmshurst, now a fellow of Chatham House, said the Prime Minister could not justify breaking the international convention against torture by saying the "rules of the game have changed" because of the war on terrorism.
Britain's European partners stepped up the pressure for details to be disclosed about hundreds of secret flights by CIA-operated jets.
Sarah Ludford, a British member of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee, said: "I am not at all reassured that there is sufficient determination by [member states] to establish the truth," she said. "The allegations are now beyond speculation. We now have sufficient evidence involving CIA flights. We need to know who was on those flights, where they went."
EU leaders are ready to follow up their request to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, to challenge the White House. On Tuesday he wrote to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, calling for details of the secret flights to be revealed. Mr Straw said yesterday he had raised the issue with Ms Rice. She is likely to face direct challenges about flights when she visits Brussels next week.
This month, prisoners were reported held in two eastern European countries, believed to be Romania and Poland, brought there on flights the CIA calls "extraordinary rendition". Michael Ratner, director of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, said: "It's a secret. No one knows what happens in the rendition process or in the gulag of secret CIA hellholes."
But journalists and campaigners have tracked some of what is happening by monitoring the flight records of planes known to be used by the CIA. Plane-spotters have helped compile information on the aircraft - including one Gulfstream originally identified as N379P but now renumbered N44982 - and their movements.
Twenty-six planes apparently used by the CIA have made 307 flights in Europe since 9/11. Of these, 94 had stops in Germany and 76 in Britain, at Luton, Glasgow, Prestwick and Northolt. The UK government has denied prisoners are being held on a US-operated base on British-owned Diego Garcia.
John Sifton, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, which has released a list of 26 "ghost detainees" held by the US without access to lawyers, said probably only a few of the 307 flights involved moving prisoners. Most, he said, were likely transferring CIA personnel. "It's impossible to know for sure how many are innocent," he said.
There is a debate in the US about whether torture should be permitted for extracting information. A Bill tabled by Senator John McCain to outlaw torture passed the Senate but is being opposed by Vice President Dick Cheney, who wants special exemption for CIA agents.
Increasingly, politicians in Britain and Europe are showing a determination to find out whether the US has "black sites" in eastern Europe where harsh treatment of suspected terrorists would raise fewer questions. Alexander Alvaro, a German Liberal MEP and member of the European civil liberties committee, said Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, would raise the issue in talks with George Bush. "I think our Chancellor will point out that Germany would not tolerate secret camps in Europe."
There are growing calls at Westminster for Mr Blair to block the CIA flights. The Labour MP Harry Cohen said: "It is not for the UK Government to connive in and facilitate people disappearance. The Government's blind-eye approach to enforcing the law is not acceptable."
An all-party group to challenge the UK and US Governments over the transport of suspected terrorists, was launched yesterday at Westminster. It will be chaired by Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, former Labour foreign affairs minister, Chris Mullin, and Sir Menzies Campbell, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article330660.ece
The Worldwide Search for the Anglo/American Torturers is on:
- check "military islands" like Diego Garcia
- check US warships
- check any young "democrazy", where the torturers get practical lessons by the US military using real people as guinea pigs.
- check any old "democrazy", where the hidden governance has been established with perfidity since long.
Any dictatorship, where the top-shot at least takes responsibility, is better than today's sick governance-systems run by networks of maniac and paranoid and often enough incorporated psychopaths.
US on Defensive as Reports of 'Secret Torture Flights' Pile Up Agence France-Presse
Friday 02 December 2005
The United States was facing mounting embarrassment as allegations continued to emerge of a shadowy network of both secret prison camps and CIA "torture flights" carrying undeclared detainees through European and other countries.
In the latest such report the British newspaper The Guardian said Thursday it had seen navigation logs showing that more than 300 flights operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency had passed through European airports, as part of a network that could be involved in the clandestine detention and possible torture of terrorism suspects.
The claims have emerged since November 2, when the Washington Post newspaper reported that "black site" prisons were, or had been, located in eight countries including Thailand, Afghanistan and "several democracies in Eastern Europe" since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
The paper also said that the CIA had used planes to send more than 100 suspects to the hidden global internment network, not including prisoners picked up from Iraq.
Its report did not name the European countries involved, but Poland, a European Union member, has denied being one of them, as has Romania.
There have been widespread reports that the alleged network could involve both the transport and torture of undeclared detainees.
The EU has meanwhile threatened sanctions against any of its member states found to have been operating such prisons, or allowing their territory to be used for the transport of the phantom detainees.
The United States on Wednesday promised a timely and forthright reply to the EU concerns.
In Thursday's report the Guardian said flight logs its reporters had seen showed that CIA planes visited Germany 96 times and Britain 80 times, though when charter flights were added this figure rose to more than 200. France was only visited twice and Austria not at all, the newspaper said.
The logs also showed regular trips to Eastern Europe, including 15 stops in the Czech capital Prague.
"Only one visit is recorded to the Szymany airbase in north-east Poland, which has been identified as the alleged site of a secret CIA jail," The paper added.
Among other reports relating to alleged secret flights through European countries:
* The Danish transport ministry said in September that it had recorded at least 20 illegal over-flights by CIA planes since 2001.
* The Hungarian government said last month that two CIA craft had landed at Budapest airport in the past two years.
* Iceland said it was not satisfied with Washington's response to allegations that CIA planes had landed on its territory at least 67 times since 2001.
* Portuguese Foreign Minister Diogo Freitas do Amaral said he would report to parliament on December 13 on reports of illicit CIA flights passing through the country, including three incidents last March.
* Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said his government would be looking into reports that US planes had both flown over and landed in his country on secret missions that could be linked to transports of undeclared terrorism suspects.
Planes allegedly operated by the CIA have also been spotted at airports in Finland, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain and Sweden as well as Morocco.
Go to Original
http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_28531.shtml
Rice to Address Secret Prison Issue in Europe Deutsche Welle
Friday 02 December 2005
When she heads to Europe for a five-day visit next week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will face a barrage of questions about alleged secret CIA prisons for terror suspects.
As Condoleeza Rice prepares for a trip to Germany, Romania, Ukraine and Brussels for a NATO meeting, the US is under mounting pressure to come clean about reports of "black site" prisons in Europe.
Media allegations of an underground network of secret prisons and possible torture of undeclared terrorism suspects show no sign of letting up.
Brussels has threatened sanctions against any EU states found to have been operating these clandestine jails or allowing their territory to be used for the transport of "ghost detainees," while a number of EU parliamentarians have accused European leaders of failing to call the Bush Administration to account.
Statement Expected
But speaking in Washington after meeting the Secretary of State Thursday, Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said Rice intends to make a statement on the row when she visits Europe next week.
Ireland is among the countries concerned that its airports were used by the Central Intelligence Agency in transporting prisoners to undisclosed European destinations.
Ahern said Rice had told him she would answer a formal query from the European Union on the reports, but said the top US envoy would also make it "quite clear that as far as Americans are concerned, they have not infringed any international human rights laws in relation to this."
Going on the Offensive
On Thursday, the State Department released a letter from Britain asking, as acting EU president, for clarification of the media reports "suggesting violations of international law" in its detention and transport of terror suspects to foreign states for interrogation, which is known as rendition.
Spokesman Sean McCormack defended the US renditions policy Wednesday.
"As a theoretical legal matter, I understand the practice of renditions is one that is recognized by the international system," he said.
A Priority Issue
Rice's tour, beginning Monday, will also include a get-acquainted meeting with the new German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which is expected to focus on repairing the two countries' damaged relations after the Iraq war.
The secret prisons controversy is the latest test of the still-fragile trans-Atlantic relationship, and has fanned the flames of Europe's concern at US detainee policies as evidenced in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick will be preceding Rice to Germany, meeting next Wednesday and Thursday with Merkel and members of parliament.
In Intelligence, One Has Only Temporary Allies
By Manuelle Tilly
Le Nouvel Observateur
Friday 02 December 2005
Interview with a former French intelligence officer, who wishes to remain anonymous.
Is it really surprising to learn that the CIA has secret prisons for conducting any kind of interrogations it wants to?
No, there's nothing surprising about that. Many people know about it. But we are not talking about prisons, exactly. These are locales where people can by interrogated by methods not used under common law. All methods are used there, especially chemical methods. The CIA's system is not painful torture. There were places suspected of harboring this type of locale, for example "Camp Bond Street" in Kosovo. The CIA uses existing infrastructures. It has reserved areas in military installations, as it does in camps in Afghanistan. Prisoner transfers occur for practical reasons. The prisoners are arrested and transferred by plane for interrogation. In the war against terrorism, the CIA didn't take enough precautions, because they imagined they had everyone's assent, and now it ends up that people know about their activities.
Three hundred airplanes used by the CIA that could have conveyed Islamists to secret prisons landed in Europe, including two in France. Would you say the French secret services knew about it?
If the planes landed on specific bases, our secret services knew about them. There are two possible bases in France. If the CIA landed there, our secret services knew that, but did not necessarily know what there was in the planes.
For example, when I was still serving, the French airplane "Médor" did a tour of French embassies to transport DGSE [French secret service] secret materiel. But the countries in question didn't know what the airplane carried. When a sensitive airplane lands in France, it happens the same way.
Finally, you mustn't forget that the secret services are public services that execute governmental orders without talking about it. Consequently, if politicians have given their approval, they know what the airplane carries.
If these prisons really exist, as I believe they do, those guilty of complicity are not the intelligence services who receive the orders: it's the politicians. The government commands: functionaries execute those orders. If the investigation goes somewhere, which would surprise me, we shouldn't be questioning secret service functionaries, but rather the authorities who give the orders.
How does the relationship between secret services work, specifically between the DGSE and the CIA?
Every country has an office in charge of international relations. The DGSE is the only agency authorized to exchange information with the CIA. But in France, that gets complicated when you add in the European Union.
In the framework of the war against terrorism, in the Schengen Treaty area, police forces are tempted to exchange information directly - that is, bilaterally - although, according to the norms, everything should be made available to all.
With regard to intelligence, you never tell all. You never give away sources. You have no friends, only temporary allies. When you provide a fact, you provide a true, certain and useful fact for a particular point.
Networks for the multinational exchange of intelligence are being setting up, for example at the NATO level. Each nation feeds the network through the intermediary of national information cells (NIC). For example, NATO has different cells of diverse nationalities. NICs furnish allies with intelligence considered communicable.
With respect to terrorism, only synthesized intelligence is exchanged: an intelligence document that summarizes all the intelligence - military, police, economic - from all sources, without citing them.
Sometimes, you need bilateral intelligence. For example, if the Americans have a concern with ramifications for Spain, France, and Belgium, the CIA will contact the Spanish, French, and Belgian governments, which each give what they want to give, without necessarily consulting one another. Intelligence networks form at global, continental, and national levels, also by type of interest.
Every problem occurs in the context of global phenomena, with a political, financial and macro-economic background, including arms and drug trafficking.
Consequently, before giving assistance in the domain of terrorism, governments take into account their own interests. In France, we are not officially engaged in Iraq, but we are directly involved with the Americans in Afghanistan. Consequently, we certainly have an interest in opening our bases to the American secret services.
Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120205H.shtml
Blair faces allegations of complicity in torture
By Colin Brown and Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 02 December 2005
Pressure is mounting on the White House to answer claims that the CIA is using UK airports to fly terrorist suspects for torture in secret prisons in Europe. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office lawyer who resigned over the Iraq war, warned Tony Blair last night that he cannot duck the questions crowding in about the flights which could mean Britain has been complicit in torture.
In The Independent, Ms Wilmshurst, now a fellow of Chatham House, said the Prime Minister could not justify breaking the international convention against torture by saying the "rules of the game have changed" because of the war on terrorism.
Britain's European partners stepped up the pressure for details to be disclosed about hundreds of secret flights by CIA-operated jets.
Sarah Ludford, a British member of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee, said: "I am not at all reassured that there is sufficient determination by [member states] to establish the truth," she said. "The allegations are now beyond speculation. We now have sufficient evidence involving CIA flights. We need to know who was on those flights, where they went."
EU leaders are ready to follow up their request to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, to challenge the White House. On Tuesday he wrote to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, calling for details of the secret flights to be revealed. Mr Straw said yesterday he had raised the issue with Ms Rice. She is likely to face direct challenges about flights when she visits Brussels next week.
This month, prisoners were reported held in two eastern European countries, believed to be Romania and Poland, brought there on flights the CIA calls "extraordinary rendition". Michael Ratner, director of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, said: "It's a secret. No one knows what happens in the rendition process or in the gulag of secret CIA hellholes."
But journalists and campaigners have tracked some of what is happening by monitoring the flight records of planes known to be used by the CIA. Plane-spotters have helped compile information on the aircraft - including one Gulfstream originally identified as N379P but now renumbered N44982 - and their movements.
Twenty-six planes apparently used by the CIA have made 307 flights in Europe since 9/11. Of these, 94 had stops in Germany and 76 in Britain, at Luton, Glasgow, Prestwick and Northolt. The UK government has denied prisoners are being held on a US-operated base on British-owned Diego Garcia.
John Sifton, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, which has released a list of 26 "ghost detainees" held by the US without access to lawyers, said probably only a few of the 307 flights involved moving prisoners. Most, he said, were likely transferring CIA personnel. "It's impossible to know for sure how many are innocent," he said.
There is a debate in the US about whether torture should be permitted for extracting information. A Bill tabled by Senator John McCain to outlaw torture passed the Senate but is being opposed by Vice President Dick Cheney, who wants special exemption for CIA agents.
Increasingly, politicians in Britain and Europe are showing a determination to find out whether the US has "black sites" in eastern Europe where harsh treatment of suspected terrorists would raise fewer questions. Alexander Alvaro, a German Liberal MEP and member of the European civil liberties committee, said Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, would raise the issue in talks with George Bush. "I think our Chancellor will point out that Germany would not tolerate secret camps in Europe."
There are growing calls at Westminster for Mr Blair to block the CIA flights. The Labour MP Harry Cohen said: "It is not for the UK Government to connive in and facilitate people disappearance. The Government's blind-eye approach to enforcing the law is not acceptable."
An all-party group to challenge the UK and US Governments over the transport of suspected terrorists, was launched yesterday at Westminster. It will be chaired by Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, former Labour foreign affairs minister, Chris Mullin, and Sir Menzies Campbell, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Pressure is mounting on the White House to answer claims that the CIA is using UK airports to fly terrorist suspects for torture in secret prisons in Europe. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office lawyer who resigned over the Iraq war, warned Tony Blair last night that he cannot duck the questions crowding in about the flights which could mean Britain has been complicit in torture.
In The Independent, Ms Wilmshurst, now a fellow of Chatham House, said the Prime Minister could not justify breaking the international convention against torture by saying the "rules of the game have changed" because of the war on terrorism.
Britain's European partners stepped up the pressure for details to be disclosed about hundreds of secret flights by CIA-operated jets.
Sarah Ludford, a British member of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee, said: "I am not at all reassured that there is sufficient determination by [member states] to establish the truth," she said. "The allegations are now beyond speculation. We now have sufficient evidence involving CIA flights. We need to know who was on those flights, where they went."
EU leaders are ready to follow up their request to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, to challenge the White House. On Tuesday he wrote to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, calling for details of the secret flights to be revealed. Mr Straw said yesterday he had raised the issue with Ms Rice. She is likely to face direct challenges about flights when she visits Brussels next week.
This month, prisoners were reported held in two eastern European countries, believed to be Romania and Poland, brought there on flights the CIA calls "extraordinary rendition". Michael Ratner, director of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, said: "It's a secret. No one knows what happens in the rendition process or in the gulag of secret CIA hellholes."
But journalists and campaigners have tracked some of what is happening by monitoring the flight records of planes known to be used by the CIA. Plane-spotters have helped compile information on the aircraft - including one Gulfstream originally identified as N379P but now renumbered N44982 - and their movements.
Twenty-six planes apparently used by the CIA have made 307 flights in Europe since 9/11. Of these, 94 had stops in Germany and 76 in Britain, at Luton, Glasgow, Prestwick and Northolt. The UK government has denied prisoners are being held on a US-operated base on British-owned Diego Garcia.
John Sifton, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, which has released a list of 26 "ghost detainees" held by the US without access to lawyers, said probably only a few of the 307 flights involved moving prisoners. Most, he said, were likely transferring CIA personnel. "It's impossible to know for sure how many are innocent," he said.
There is a debate in the US about whether torture should be permitted for extracting information. A Bill tabled by Senator John McCain to outlaw torture passed the Senate but is being opposed by Vice President Dick Cheney, who wants special exemption for CIA agents.
Increasingly, politicians in Britain and Europe are showing a determination to find out whether the US has "black sites" in eastern Europe where harsh treatment of suspected terrorists would raise fewer questions. Alexander Alvaro, a German Liberal MEP and member of the European civil liberties committee, said Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, would raise the issue in talks with George Bush. "I think our Chancellor will point out that Germany would not tolerate secret camps in Europe."
There are growing calls at Westminster for Mr Blair to block the CIA flights. The Labour MP Harry Cohen said: "It is not for the UK Government to connive in and facilitate people disappearance. The Government's blind-eye approach to enforcing the law is not acceptable."
An all-party group to challenge the UK and US Governments over the transport of suspected terrorists, was launched yesterday at Westminster. It will be chaired by Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, former Labour foreign affairs minister, Chris Mullin, and Sir Menzies Campbell, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article330660.ece
Starmail - 3. Dez, 12:32
