CIA abduction claims 'credible'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4524864.stm


( Why do I feel that so much 'news' is years old????)




Allegations that the CIA abducted and illegally transported terror suspects across European borders are credible, an investigator has said.

Swiss senator Dick Marty has submitted a report on the claims, made in the media, to a meeting of the human rights committee of the Council of Europe.

Mr Marty criticised the US for refusing to confirm or deny the allegations.

The US government and its intelligence agencies say that all their operations are conducted within the law.

Call for comment

Mr Marty's findings were released in an official statement by the human rights committee.

"The elements we have gathered so far tend to reinforce the credibility of the allegations concerning the transport and temporary detention of detainees - outside all judicial procedure - in European countries," he said.

**more**

Agency with it's ambiguous agenda.

can we dare hope something will come of it?

Or did Condi lick enough boots to quell another spell of international outrage?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3521292.html

Swiss Lawmaker Cites CIA Prison Evidence

Tuesday December 13, 2005 2:16 PM

By JAMEY KEATEN

Associated Press Writer

PARIS (AP) - A Swiss investigator probing claims of secret CIA prisons in Europe said his committee has evidence that supports allegations that prisoners were transferred between countries and temporarily held ``without any judicial involvement.''

``Legal proceedings in progress in certain countries seemed to indicate that individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards,'' lawmaker Dick Marty said in a written report summarizing his investigations so far.

Marty told a news conference he believed the United States was no longer holding prisoners clandestinely in Europe and believes they were moved to North Africa in early November, when reports about secret U.S. prisons first emerged in The Washington Post. He did not provide any other details.

He presented his findings in Paris to a committee of the Council of Europe, the continent's human rights watchdog.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5476548,00.html

Investigator links Europe's spy agencies to CIA flights

Jon Henley in Paris and Richard Norton-Taylor
Wednesday December 14, 2005
The Guardian



CIA prisoners in Europe were apparently abducted and moved between countries illegally, possibly with the aid of national secret services who did not tell their governments, according to the first official report on the so-called "renditions" scandal. Dick Marty, a Swiss senator investigating allegations of secret CIA prisons for the Council of Europe, said that he did not think the US was still holding prisoners in Europe, but had probably moved them to north Africa last month.

Mr Marty said in a statement after a Paris meeting of the council that his information so far "reinforces the credibility of the allegations concerning the transfer and temporary detention of individuals, without any judicial involvement, in European countries". The council has set its 46 members a three-month deadline to reveal what they know about the transfers. Mr Marty said that if it was proved that European governments knew the renditions process, involving flying terrorist suspects to secret interrogation centres, was going on, they "would stand accused of having seriously breached their human rights obligations to the Council of Europe".

The senator acted as British MPs and peers were told by an international lawyer that their government would break the law if it did not investigate allegations that the CIA transferred terrorist suspects via Britain to secret camps where they may have been tortured. "Credible information suggesting that foreign nationals are being transported by officials of another state, via the United Kingdom, to detention facilities for interrogation under torture, would imply a breach of the convention and must be investigated," James Crawford, professor of international law at Cambridge University, told the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition.

Yesterday in his interim report the Swiss senator criticised the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, for refusing to confirm or deny allegations, first published in the Washington Post last month, that the CIA maintained secret prisons in Europe, "The rapporteur ... deplores the fact that no information or explanation had been provided on this point by Ms Rice during her visit to Europe," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1666824,00.html