Giovanni Claudio Fava reads the final report on alleged illegal CIA activities in Europe in the European Parliament, February 14, 2007.
Photo: AFP
|
 |
Europarliament Condemns Eurocountries for CIA Collaboration
The European Parliament approved a report condemning secret flights by CIA planes across Europe and accusing a number of European countries of accommodating that practice and even illegally collaborating with the American secret services. Although the document is nonbinding, parliamentarians fought hard over its wording and proposed 270 amendments to it.
The report condemns the activities of American intelligence, which secretly kidnapped Europeans (usually immigrants from the East) and transported them to third countries, where they were tortured. The Americans admit that suspected terrorists were detained and transported to other countries, but deny any use of torture.
The report, which took over a year to write, mentions 1245 secret CIA flights through 13 European countries and about 20 cases when citizens of European countries taken into custody in Iraq or Afghanistan were on such flights. The report also harshly criticizes Secretary General of the EU Council Javier Solana for providing “fragmentary information” about what he knew about the CIA actions and his unwillingness to cooperate with the European Parliament investigation. The report is almost completely silent about secret CIA prisons in Europe, which is the topic the investigation started with in November 2005, because of lack of convincing evidence of them. The report was approved by a vote of 382 to 256 against, with 74 abstentions.
Not one of the countries suspected of collaborating with the CIA has admitted to the alleged CIA activity on its territory. In countries such as Portugal, Italy, Spain and Germany, investigations were initiated by the courts. Human rights activists were alarmed by the acrimony shown before the approval of the report. “Last minute attempts to weaken the report are a worrying sign of the European Parliament's vulnerability to national and party interests, despite the grave nature of abuses: kidnapping, torture and disappearances,” Amnesty International wrote in a special statement.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 15, 2007
|
|
|
