MADRID, 17 November 2005 — Concern widened yesterday in a clutch of countries in Europe and North Africa over the use of their airports by US intelligence officials to transfer suspected extremists.
Germany, Hungary, Italy, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain and Sweden are all concerned at how their facilities came to be used for the transit — or “rendition” — of prisoners allegedly subjected to extra-judicial detention and torture.
In Olso, the Norwegian government summoned a US Embassy official over the landing in Oslo on July 20 of a plane, which according to media reports, was one of those the CIA used to transport the suspected extremists.
According to a Foreign Ministry spokesman, the official “denied that the plane in question had been used by the American authorities at the time.” The Swedish government similarly demanded “complete information” from its civil aviation authorities after the TT news agency reported at least two suspected CIA planes had landed at Swedish airports over the past three years and that one of them was used at the US base at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba, probably for transporting prisoners.
In Morocco, Le Journal weekly on Saturday cited a former agent with the national DST intelligence service as saying the country had directly participated in the CIA operation with at least ten flights carrying prisoners landing in Morocco between December 2002 and February this year.
In Spain, El Pais cited a report by the civil guard, which has military as well as police functions, as saying the prisoner transport planes made at least 10 secret stopoffs at Palma de Mallorca in the Balearic Islands between Jan. 22, 2004 and Jan. 17, 2005. The Canary Islands might also be concerned by the affair.
“I’m not aware that we’ve been officially approached by the government of Spain,” US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Tuesday when asked about the controversy.
A series of denials on the existence of the prisons for top Al-Qaeda suspects has come from Thailand and Eastern European US allies, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania.
Only the Czech Republic has gone as far as to say it turned down a US demand to house prisoners previously held at Guantanamo on its soil. The International Committee of the Red Cross says it has tried in vain for more than two years to persuade Washington to give it access to those held secretly abroad “in the context of the war on terrorism.”
