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Europe and the CIA: How close?
By Ian Fisher The New York Times
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2005
ROME It is not only anger that is rising in Europe
over possible secret American prisons on the Continent,
kidnappings of terror suspects and transfers of
prisoners on CIA airplanes.
There is also looming embarrassment, amid suspicion
that Americans, in many cases, have operated with
the knowledge or consent of local governments.
"Someone knew," said Daria Pesce, the
lawyer for a former CIA station chief in Milan,
one of 22 Americans formally charged in the kidnapping
of an Islamic militant who was taken from there
to Egypt in 2003.
"I don't think that it is possible that an
American comes into Italy and kidnaps someone. It
seems really unlikely."
In the past few weeks, a confusing and combustible
array of allegations has been hardening into fact
in the European mind, all pointing to a worry that
Europe's people, largely skeptical about America's
war on terror, may be more involved in that project
than they thought, and in several ways.
The operations are by nature secret, so it has been
hard to separate facts from the speculative murk
around them.
But the questions are fueled by some concrete evidence:
hundreds of recorded flights by CIA planes and at
least one kidnapping, the one in Italy, documented
in detail by prosecutors.
The questions seems likely to dominate the visit
to Europe next week of Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, and they will focus on just how active America
has been in the capture and transfer of suspected
terror suspects on European soil.
Adding to the chorus of such request from other
European countries, the British foreign minister,
Jack Straw, sent a letter on Monday to Rice, asking
for clarifications.
Straw, writing on behalf of the European Union,
asked specifically about allegations of covert prisons
in Eastern Europe and media reports that CIA airplanes
have stopped at European bases.
The State Department said Monday that it would cooperate
with such requests, adding that it had acted within
international law.
The issue is steeped with emotion, given the high
level of anger in Europe at allegations that American
interrogators have tortured prisoners in Iraq, at
Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and elsewhere.
And so the stakes are high for many European governments,
which are facing impassioned questions from opposition
politicians and human rights groups about just how
much they knew about American actions. The issue
becomes even more complicated, given the desire
of many European governments for good relations
with America and their fear of political fallout
if America actually has violated other nations'
sovereignty.
"We need full disclosure by our government,"
Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for
the Liberal Democrats in Britain, told BBC radio
Wednesday.
"If, in fact, people are being moved from a
jurisdiction where torture is illegal to a jurisdiction
where torture is permissible, that seems to me to
be wholly contrary to international law," he
said.
"If we are allowing facilities for aircraft
carrying out these actions, we are at the very least
facilitating and we may even be complicit in it."
The immediate furor was tripped off by a Washington
Post article on Nov. 2 alleging that, since the
Sept. 11 terror attacks, the CIA has created a covert
prison system in eight countries, including several
in Eastern Europe. The Post did not name the European
countries, but Human Rights Watch has alleged that
such facilities were in Poland and Romania.
Both Poland and Romania have strongly denied the
allegations, and American officials have declined
to comment.
But the concern is not restricted to covert prisons.
The most dramatic question is that of so-called
"extraordinary renditions," in which terror
suspects captured abroad are sent by the Untied
States to their home countries or to third countries,
some of which have records of torturing prisoners.
More than 100 prisoners are suspected of being transferred
in this way since September 2001.
The suspected rendition with the highest profile
occurred in Italy.
On Feb. 17, 2003, an Islamic militant, Hassan Mustafa
Osama Nasr, disappeared from Milan; he appeared
later in Egypt, where he said he had been tortured.
In the only case to have gone into the legal system,
Italian prosecutors have charged 22 American operatives
with the alleged kidnapping. While the Italian government
has denied any knowledge of the operation, it has
also declined so far to ask the United States to
extradite the suspects, raising much suspicion in
Italy that the government either knew about or approved
the operation.
"I don't see why they shouldn't have agreed
with our secret services on an action like that,"
said Giuseppe Cucchi, a former three-star Italian
general, military representative to NATO and current
adviser to the center-left opposition.
"The condition often put on an action like
that is that, 'If something comes out, we will declare
that we didn't know anything."
In an indication of the testiness of the Italian
government on the issue, the justice minister, Roberto
Castelli, has accused the chief prosecutor in the
case of being an anti-American militant.
In recent weeks, another issue has surfaced: that
of CIA planes making stops in various European countries
- and whether those planes carried suspects bound
for secret American prisons.
While there have been varying media reports in countries
around Europe, an analysis done for The New York
Times of 26 planes known to be operated by CIA companies
shows 307 flights in Europe since September 2001.
The information was culled from Federal Aviation
Administration data, information provided by aviation
industry sources and, to a lesser extent, a network
of plane spotters who often report to human rights
groups.
It finds that there were 94 flights in Germany,
the most in Europe (an investigation has opened
there on whether Omar, the suspect arrested in Italy,
was flown out of an American air base in Germany).
Second is Britain, with 76 flights; followed by
Ireland with 33; Portugal with 16; then Spain and
the Czech Republic with 15 each.
In Britain, where opposition to the war in Iraq
has been high despite Prime Minister Tony Blair's
support of it, a human rights group, Liberty, said
Wednesday it was concerned that some of the flights
might have carried secret prisoners, an allegation
joined by Campbell, but quickly denied by the British
government.
"We are not aware of the use of U.K. territory
or airspace for the purpose of extraordinary renditions,
nor have we received any requests, nor granted any
permission for the use of U.K. territory or airspace
for such purposes," said a Foreign Office spokeswoman,
speaking anonymously because of the office's policy
of not allowing the use of spokesmen's names.
There are more than half a dozen investigations
into flights in various countries, as well as an
inquiry by the Council of Europe which also covers
the question of secret prisons in Eastern Europe.
A council official said Wednesday it is looking
into flights of nearly 40 planes believed to be
operated by the CIA, but said he believed the number
of prisoners aboard them was probably small.
"There are not these huge numbers flying around,
as if the CIA does nothing but disappear people
and transfer them back and forth," said the
official, speaking on condition of anonymity because
the council has imposed a temporary halt to speaking
publicly about its inquiry. "We are fully aware
of this."
But he said it was thus important for American officials
to cooperate with the inquiry, to clear the cloud
of suspicion about the flights "that are illicit
and the ones that are not."
The issue has careered around Europe. In Munich,
prosecutors have opened an investigation into the
abduction of a German citizen who says the CIA flew
him from Macedonia to Afghanistan early in 2004.
There he was interrogated for five months before
being released, he said.
A Macedonian official said the German, Khaled Masri,
left Macedonia of his own accord. But others are
skeptical. "What choice do you have when you
are the size of Macedonia?" said Saso Ordanoski,
a leading political commentator and editor of the
weekly political magazine Forum. "Can you say
no? No!"
Stephen Grey contributed reporting from Johannesburg,
Alan Cowell from London, Richard Bernstein from
Berlin, Renwick McLean from Barcelona, Nicholas
Wood from Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Brian Wingfield
from Rome.
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