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Eastern European states deny hosting CIA prisons

Allegations that the CIA set up secret jails in eastern Europe and elsewhere to interrogate al-Qaeda suspects have triggered a flurry of denials from governments in the former Soviet bloc and prompted EU officials, the continent's top human-rights organization and the international Red Cross (ICRC) to investigate.

Such prisons, European officials say, would violate the continent's human rights principles.

At work may be a complex web of global politics, in which eastern European countries face choices between the views of the EU and their interest in close ties with the US.

According to a report on Wednesday in the Washington Post, the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaeda captives at Soviet-era compounds in eastern Europe.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has had exclusive rights to visit terror suspects detained at a US military base at Guantanamo, took strong interest in the claims -- having long been concerned about reports US officials were hiding detainees from ICRC delegates.

Red Cross chief spokeswoman Antonella Notari said the organization had asked Washington about the allegations and requested access to the prisons if they exist.

Europe's top human rights organization, the Council of Europe, said it, too, would investigate the claims.

Notari said the Red Cross, which also monitors conditions at US detention centers in Afghanistan and Iraq, has been unable to find some people who have reportedly been detained.

She said the Red Cross was "concerned about the fate of an unknown number of persons detained as part of what is called the `global war on terror' and held in undisclosed places of detention."

Human Rights Watch in New York said on Thursday it has evidence indicating the CIA transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania. The conclusion is based on an analysis of flight logs of CIA aircraft from 2001 to last year obtained by the group, said Mark Garlasco, a senior military analyst with the organization.

Human Rights Watch said it matched the flight patterns of the CIA aircraft with testimony from some of the hundreds of detainees in the war on terrorism who have been released by the US.

"The indications are that prisoners in Afghanistan are being [taken] to facilities in Europe and other countries in the world," Garlasco, a former civilian intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, said.

He would not say how the organization attained the flight logs, but he noted that two destinations of the flights in particular stood out as likely sites of any secret CIA detention centers: Szymany Airport in Poland, which is near the headquarters of Poland's intelligence service; and Mihail Kogalniceanu military airfield in Romania, Garlasco said.

The group also obtained the tail numbers of dozens of CIA aircraft to match them with the flight logs, Garlasco said.

On one of the flights, a Boeing 737 in September 2003 flew to Kabul, Afghanistan from Washington via Ruzyne in the Czech Republic and Tashkent, Uzbekistan, he said. On Sept. 22, the plane flew to Szymany Airport, then to Mihail Kogalniceanu, proceeded to Sale, Morocco and finally landed at the US Naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, Garlasco said.

As far as he knew, Human Rights Watch has not found and interviewed detainees who were held in any alleged facilities in Poland and Romania.
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