Concern widens in Europe over CIA prisoner flights
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-11-17 09:14

Concern widened in a clutch of countries in Europe and north Africa over the use of their airports by US intelligence officials to transfer suspected Islamic extremists.

Germany, Hungary, Italy, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden have all been linked to the CIA's use of planes for the transit, or rendition, of prisoners allegedly subjected to extra-judicial detention and torture.

In Oslo, the government summoned a US embassy official over the landing in the Norwegian capital on July 20 of a plane which according to media reports was one of those the CIA used to transport the suspected extremists.

According to a foreign ministry spokesman, the official "denied that the plane in question had been used by the American authorities at the time."

The Swedish government similarly demanded "complete information" from its civil aviation authorities after the TT news agency reported at least two suspected CIA planes had landed at Swedish airports over the past three years and that one of them was used at the US base at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba, probably for transporting prisoners.

In Morocco, Le Journal weekly on Saturday cited a former agent with the national DST intelligence service as saying the country had directly participated in the CIA operation with at least 10 flights carrying prisoners landing in Morocco between December 2002 and February this year.

In Spain, El Pais cited a report by the civil guard, which has military as well as police functions, as saying the prisoner transport planes made at least 10 secret stopoffs at Palma de Mallorca in the Balearic Islands between January 22, 2004 and January 17, 2005. The Canary Islands might also be concerned by the affair.

That news prompted Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso to say Tuesday that if the reports were true, it could damage relations between Madrid and Washington as such flights would be "intolerable in every sense."

Spain's United Left opposition party has demanded that Alonso appear before parliament to explain the situation along with Alberto Saiz, head of national intelligence bureau CNI.

Late Wednesday a spokesman for the prime minister's office said Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos would appear before the Congress at an unspecified date to answer questions about the alleged CIA stopovers.

Portuguese Defense Minister Luis Amado, responding to questions from journalists, said the government had no "elements which can support" local media reports that CIA planes had landed near Lisbon.

The US Senate has asked the CIA to inform it as to the precise nature of its prisoner transport operations.

According to the Washington Post, the CIA has placed more than 100 illegally held suspects in a secret prison network in Afghanistan, Thailand and Eastern Europe since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

Following that report the CIA called on the Justice Department to hold an inquiry into the "information leaks" on the prisons.

A series of denials on the existence of the prisons for top Al-Qaeda suspects has come from Thailand and eastern European US allies, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania.

Only the Czech Republic has gone as far as saying it turned down a US demand to house prisoners previously held at Guantanamo on its soil.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says it has tried in vain for more than two years to persuade Washington to give it access to those held secretly abroad "in the context of the war on terrorism."

An investigation is under way in Germany over the February 2003 kidnap in Italy by CIA agents of Abou Omar, a former imam who was allegedly brought to the US military base at Ramstein in southwestern Germany prior to his being taken to Egypt.

In Italy on Friday, the Milan public prosecutor demanded the extradition of 22 CIA agents believed to have been involved in the abduction of Omar, the subject of an Italian anti-terrorist investigation.

The Italian government has demanded "the full respect of Italian sovereignty" in the affair.

UN special rapporteur into torture, Manfred Nowak, has called on the EU and the Council of Europe to "hold high level inquiries" and the council says one is to follow.