KIEV, Ukraine, March 13 (UPI) -- Ukraine's Ministry of Defense has strongly denied that the CIA operated a secret rendition prison for Muslim terror suspects on Ukrainian territory.
On March 13, Itar-Tass news agency reported that Ministry of Defense press service head Andrei Lysenko denied reports in the March 12 Russian RTR television broadcast "Special Investigation," which claimed that the CIA operated a secret prison for inmates from Afghanistan and Iraq, probably in the Makarov-11 garrison base, in Ukraine's Kiev region.
The program quoted parliamentary committee for defense and national security head Georgy Kryuchkov as saying that he had received an anonymous letter about secret CIA prisons on Ukrainian territory.
On March 10 Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis wrote to the foreign ministers of 37 of the 46 Council of Europe member countries, including Ukraine, to follow up his inquiry on Council of Europe member states' compliance with their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, seeking additional information about their possible involvement in secret CIA rendition flights and holding facilities.
Davis asked the governments to complete or clarify their replies in response to his initial request last November, setting an April 7 deadline for reply.
