Germany 'played part' in CIA's secret network 07/06/2006 00:00

7 June 2006

STRASBOURG/BRUSSELS - Europe's top human-rights watchdog on Wednesday said several European governments were part of a "global spider's web" which had helped the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conduct illicit activities on the continent.

The Council of Europe also charged that Poland and Romania had hosted clandestine CIA camps on their territory. Both countries, however, deny the allegation.

A new report by the Council of Europe said that in varying degrees, Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Britain, Italy, Macedonia, Germany and Turkey were part of a global network which helped the CIA run secret detention centres and transfer suspected terrorists.

"It is now clear that authorities in several European countries actively participated with the CIA in these unlawful activities," the council's investigator Dick Marty said in a statement.

Germany, Turkey, Spain and Cyprus were "staging points" for flights carrying detainees, the report said. Ireland, Britain, Portugal, Greece and Italy were "stopovers" for such flights.

"Other countries ignored them knowingly, or did not want to know," Marty stressed.

"The impression which some governments tried to create at the beginning of this debate that Europe was a victim of secret CIA plots does not seem to correspond to reality," he said.

Marty also said there was evidence to back suspicions that secret CIA camps are or were located in Poland and Romania. The two countries have strongly denied the allegation in the past.

"Even if proof, in the classical meaning of the term, is not as yet available, a number of coherent and converging elements indicate that such secret detention centres did indeed exist in Europe," the Swiss parliamentarian insisted.

Marty said he used evidence from national and international air traffic control authorities, as well as sources inside intelligence services, including in the US.

"The US ... created this reprehensible network, which we criticize in light of the values shared on both sides of the Atlantic," Marty said.

"We believe to have established that it is only through the intentional or grossly negligent collusion of the European partners that this "web" was able to spread also over Europe," he added.

He also urged the international community to clarify places of detention in Kosovo, which he said still qualify as "black holes."

The report is due to be debated by the plenary Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg on June 27.

The 46-nation Strasbourg-based council is Europe's top human- rights watchdog.

Last November, it started to question European governments on allegations they had allowed secret CIA detention centres and flights across the continent.

DPA

Subject: German news