Court
rules Poland complicit in CIA renditions
BRUSSELS - A
European rights court Thursday (24 July) found that Poland allowed the CIA to
operate a secret rendition and interrogation camp at its Stare Kiejkuty militry
basae and did nothing to stop it.
The unanimous
verdict, by the seven judges at the European Court of Human Rights, is likely
to have wider implications on pending cases against Lithuania and Romania for
their alleged involvement in the rendition programme.
The
Strasbourg-based court found that “Poland had cooperated in the preparation and
execution of the CIA rendition, secret detention and interrogation operations
on its territory” and knowingly exposed people to abuse in violation to the
European convention of human rights.
The ruling is
likely to be an embarassment to Warsaw which has always denied the presence of
a CIA jail on its territory.
Former US President George W. Bush began the "extraordinary rendition م" programme in the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
Expert witnesses
and evidence obtained through several international inquiries and various
documents convinced the European judges the renditions had taken place.
The court also
noted that Poland’s refusal to hand over evidence entitled it “to draw negative
inferences from the government’s conduct”.
The judgement
stands in contrast to national-led inquiries by the member states, which have
yet to produce any conclusive results.
The same court
had passed a similar judgement two years ago on the arbitrary arrest, detention
and interrogation of Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen who was mistakenly
seized in Macedonia in 2004 and handed over to the CIA before being shipped to
a cell in Afghanistan.
The case involves
Saudi national Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and stateless Palestinian Abu Zubaydah.
Both men were
apprehended by the Americans and detained at Stare Kiejkuty in late 2002 where
they were allegedly subjected to mock executions and prolonged stress positions
over a months-long period.
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