EU states tried to impede CIA prison probe: Parliament report
BRUSSELS, Nov 28: European countries knew about US secret jails for terrorism suspects and have obstructed an investigation into the transport and illegal detention of prisoners, a draft European Parliament report said on Tuesday.
It criticised a string of top European Union officials, including foreign policy chief Javier Solana and counter-terrorism coordiNator Gijs de Vries, and complained of lack of cooperation from nearly all member states.
The report said Nicolo Pollari, a former head of Italy's SISMI intelligence agency, “concealed the truth” when he told European Parliament lawmakers in March that Italian agents played no part in the CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric.
On the contrary, SISMI officials played an active role in the abduction of Abu Omar, and it was “very probable” that the Italian government knew of the operation, it said.
The government of Mr Silvio Berlusconi, in power at the time, repeatedly denied any knowledge. His successor Romano Prodi last week replaced Pollari, who faces possible indictment over the Abu Omar affair but denies any wrongdoing.
The case is one of the best known of a suspected CIA “rendition”, or secret transfer of a terrorist suspect between countries, a practice rights groups say often leads to torture.
The European Parliament report said Abu Omar, abducted in Milan in 2003 and flown to Egypt, had been “held incommunicado and tortured ever since”.
Solana's spokeswoman said his office had very little responsibility for the issues raised in the report. “These are questions for the EU member states,” Cristina Gallach said.
Rights group Amnesty International said in a statement it was time for politicians to accept their responsibilities.
EUROPEANS COMPLICIT: The draft echoed charges from the Council of Europe human rights body that European states were complicit in US abuses during the war on terrorism.
It said records, from a confidential source, of an EU and NATO meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last December confirmed “member states had knowledge of the (US) programme of extraordinary rendition and secret prisons”.
President George W. Bush confirmed in September the CIA held high-level terrorism suspects at secret overseas locations, but Washington denies using torture or handing over prisoners to countries that practice it.—Reuters
