The New York Times
December 1, 2005 Thursday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Column 1; Foreign Desk; Pg. 14
LENGTH: 1452 words
HEADLINE: Reports of Secret U.S. Prisons in Europe Draw Ire and Otherwise Red
Faces
BYLINE: By IAN FISHER; Reporting for this article was contributed by Stephen
Grey in Johannesburg; Alan Cowell in London; Richard Bernstein in Berlin;
Renwick McLean in Barcelona, Spain; Nicholas Wood in Ljubljana, Slovenia; and
Brian Wingfield in Rome.
DATELINE: ROME, Nov. 30
BODY:
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 C.I.A. airplanes.
There is also looming embarrassment, with suspicion that Americans, in many
cases, operated with the knowledge or consent of local governments.
''Someone knew,'' said Daria Pesce, the lawyer for a former C.I.A. station
chief in Milan, one of 22 Americans formally charged in the kidnapping of an
Islamic militant 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 last few weeks, a confusing -- and combustible -- array of
allegations has been hardening into fact in the European mind, all pointing to a
worry that people here, largely skeptical of America's effort to prevent
terrorism, may be more involved in that project than thought, and in several
ways.
The immediate furor was set off by a report that since the Sept. 11 terror
attacks, the Central Intelligence Agency has created a covert prison system in
eight countries, including several in Eastern Europe. There have been subsequent
reports that C.I.A. planes have made stops in various European countries.
The flights have raised questions of whether they carried suspects bound
for secret American prisons, though the flights do not prove that such transfers
took place.
The concern is not limited to covert prisons, though. The biggest question
is about so-called extraordinary renditions, or transfers, in which terror
suspects captured abroad are sent by the United States to their home countries
or to third countries, some of which have records of torturing prisoners.
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 C.I.A. planes and at least
one kidnapping, the one in Italy, documented in detail by prosecutors.
The questions seem likely to dominate the visit to Europe next week of
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. They will focus on just how active America
has been in the capture and transfer of terror suspects on European soil.
Adding to the chorus of such requests from other European nations, the
British foreign minister, Jack Straw, sent a letter to Ms. Rice on Monday asking
for clarification. Mr. Straw, writing on behalf of the European Union, asked
specifically about accusations about covert prisons in Eastern Europe and news
media reports of C.I.A. airplanes stopping in 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 reports that American interrogators have tortured prisoners in Iraq;
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other places. The stakes are high for many European
governments, facing impassioned questions from opposition politicians and human
rights groups about just how much they knew about American actions.
''We need full disclosure by our government,'' Sir Menzies Campbell,
foreign affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats in Britain, told BBC radio
on 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.''
''If we are allowing facilities for aircraft carrying out these actions,''
he added, ''we are at the very least facilitating, and we may even be complicit
in it.''
A report on Nov. 2 in The Washington Post about a covert prison system did
not identify the European countries, but Human Rights Watch has said such
facilities were in Poland and Romania.
Poland and Romania have strongly denied the accusations, and American
officials have declined comment.
On the issue of extraordinary renditions, more than 100 prisoners are
suspected of being transferred in this way since September 2001. The case with
the highest profile occurred here in Italy. On Feb. 17, 2003, an Islamic
militant, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, disappeared in Milan and appeared later in
Egypt, where he said he had been tortured.
In the only case to have gone up the legal system, Italian prosecutors have
charged 22 American operatives with the 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 here that
the government either knew about the operation or approved it.
''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 general, military
representative to NATO and adviser to the center-left opposition here. ''The
condition often put on an action like that is that, 'If something comes out, we
will declare that we didn't know anything.' ''
Around Europe there have been varying media reports of C.I.A. planes making
European stops.
A recent analysis done for The New York Times of 26 planes known to be
operated by C.I.A. companies shows 307 flights in Europe since September 2001.
The information was culled from Federal Aviation Administration data, 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 Mr. Nasr, the suspect seized in Italy,
was flown out of an American air base in Germany.) Second is Britain, 76
flights, followed by Ireland (33), Portugal (16), then Spain and the Czech
Republic (15 each).
In Britain, where opposition to the war in Iraq has been high despite Prime
Minister Tony Blair's support for it, a human rights group, Liberty, said
Wednesday that it was concerned that some of the flights might have carried
secret prisoners -- an allegation joined by Sir Menzies, but quickly denied by
the 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 such officials' names.
There are more than half a dozen investigations into flights in various
countries, as well as an inquiry by the Council of Europe that also covers the
question of secret prisons in Eastern Europe. A council official said Wednesday
that they were looking into flights of nearly 40 planes believed to be operated
by the C.I.A., but he said he believed that the number of prisoners aboard them
was probably small.
''There are not these huge numbers flying around, as if the C.I.A. does
nothing but disappear people and transfer them back and forth,'' said the
official, speaking anonymously because the council has imposed a temporary halt
to speaking publicly about its inquiry.
But he said it was 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 C.I.A. 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, had 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?''
The issue of flights has been particularly potent in Spain, where Prime
Minister Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero abruptly withdrew its troops from Iraq
after he was elected last year.
Since March, there has been a police investigation into 10 flights by
suspected C.I.A. planes to the island of Majorca between January 2004 and
January 2005. The government has also confirmed 46 stopovers in the Canary
Islands by two planes apparently connected to the United States government.
Spanish officials have acknowledged that one flight in April 2004
originated in Guantanamo Bay, where the United States operates a large prison
for terror suspects. It stopped over in Tenerife before flying on to Romania.
The government denies that the flights violated any Spanish or
international law.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
GRAPHIC: Photo: Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Islamic militant, was reported
kidnapped in Milan in 2003. Italy has charged 22 Americans. (Photo by Associated
Press, circa 1995)Chart: ''C.I.A. Flights in Europe''More than 300 flights
operated by the C.I.A. have landed at European airports between November 2001
and the summer of 2005. (Source and Analysis by The New York Times)Map of Europe
shows airports used by C.I.A.
LOAD-DATE: December 1, 2005