PARIS, June 7 (UPI) -- Fourteen European countries colluded with the United States in the covert transfer of terror suspects, while two may have harbored secret CIA prisons, according to a key European Union report published Wednesday.
"It is now clear -- although we are still far from establishing the whole truth -- that authorities in several European countries actively participated with the CIA in these unlawful activities. Other countries ignored them knowingly, or did not want to know," the Council of Europe report concluded.
Britain, Sweden, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Italy, Macedonia, Germany and Turkey had been "responsible, at varying degrees... for violations of the rights of specific persons," it said.
It listed seven other countries as "responsible for collusion -- active or passive": Poland, Romania, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Portugal and Greece.
The serious charges were leveled at Poland and Romania, which, the report alleged, had allowed the CIA to operate secret detention facilities -- known as "black sites" -- on their soil.
Drawn up by Swiss parliamentarian Dick Marty on behalf of the council -- Europe's human rights watchdog -- the report identified a "spider's web" of staging posts or transfer points around the world used by U.S. authorities for the practice of "extraordinary rendition." While the U.S. had created this "reprehensible network," it was only through the "intentional or grossly negligent collusion" of the European parners that this web had been able to spread over Europe, it said.
The United States acknowledges its use of rendition -- the abduction and transfer of terror suspects to third countries or U.S.-operated detention centres -- but denies claims that its purpose is to put detainees beyond the reach of U.S. laws, where they can be interrogated using torture or mistreatment. It also insists that the practice is operated entirely within the confines of international law, a contention that is widely disputed.
Marty concluded that the practice was based on an "utterly alien" approach to human rights that breached international law.
The report says that rendition missions set off from Azerbaijan, Germany, Spain and Turkey, and used airports in Britain, the Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Italy for refueling. Suspects were picked up for "unlawful transfer" in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Italy, Macedonia and Sweden with the knowledge of the respective governments, it claims. Detainees who passed through those countries were ultimately dropped off for interrogation or transfer onward in Poland, Romania, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan, among other destinations.
The 46-nation council -- which was set up to govern human rights on the European continent following World War Two -- has been investigating the rendition network since claims that the CIA had held extrajudicial detainees in Eastern Europe and elsewhere merged in the media last year. Several European publications and human rights organizations later reported that rendition flights had passed through the territory and airspace of EU member states, prompting a political outcry.
The seven-month inquiry used seven separate sets of data from Eurocontrol, the European air-traffic control agency, together with specific information from some 20 national aviation authorities. Satellite photos and prisoners' accounts were also drawn upon.
The report's conclusions support the United States' claim that several European states had been fully aware that renditions were being conducted using their territory.
A senior U.S. State Department official told United Press International in March that rendition flights had passed through European countries with the full knowledge and cooperation of the relevant governments.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said was a "sense of aggrievement" in Washington that European governments were now expressing "shock" at the policy. However he would not name the specific countries involved.
British air traffic authorities confirmed in February that over 200 CIA flights have passed through the country since 2001, yet the government denies that any of these were involved in rendition. In December, then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told Parliament that Britain had only received three U.S. requests for renditions, all under the Clinton administration. However a government memo leaked to the New Statesman magazine in January appeared to contradict that claim.
The document, written by an official in the foreign secretary's private office on Dec. 7, just five days before his public denial, warned: "The papers we have unearthed so far suggest there could be more such cases... We cannot say that we have received no such request for the use of U.K. territory."
The memo also suggested that the government was aware that rendition was rarely legal. Foreign Office lawyers had advised -- contrary to U.S. assertions -- that the practice "is almost certainly illegal" and any British co-operation "would also be illegal," it said, before going on to question whether the U.S. definition of torture was consistent with that under international law.
Later that month, a well-placed diplomatic source told UPI that Downing Street and the Foreign Office knew that rendition flights had passed through Britain, were "extremely worried" about the political consequences of the issue and were "simply hoping it is going to go away."
Pressed on the report's findings in Parliament Wednesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair said it added "absolutely nothing new to the information we already have."
"We have kept Parliament informed of all the requests we are aware of," he insisted.
But critics of the policy accused the government of evasion and reiterated demands for an independent inquiry
Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Moore said the report had exposed the "myth" that European governments had no knowledge of or involvement in the practice.
"Ministers must answer specific allegations of British assistance, and explain why they have failed to ask hard questions of their Americans counterparts."
He said that questions tabled by his party on specific flights through Britain remained unanswered over two months on, following "a pattern of evasion and obfuscation by the government."
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said the government had used "a great deal of soft soap" to avoid a proper investigation into the "scandal."
"Only an immediate independent inquiry can rebuild our reputation in the world," she concluded.
