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   From: oO@oO.com   
      
   Document proves European Union agreed to CIA rendition flights   
   By Chris Marsden   
   17 December 2005   
   Attempts by European governments to deny knowledge their airports were used   
   by the CIA to fly detainees to facilities where they could be tortured has   
   unravelled. A document obtained by the civil rights group Statewatch   
   confirms that the European Union (EU) agreed to such flights as part of a   
   wider programme of joint security operations with the Bush administration in   
   2003.   
      
   Minutes of confidential talks held in Athens on January 22, 2003, prove that   
   EU officials agreed to allow access to their airports for the United States,   
   and also indicate that the EU was well aware that such an agreement made   
   them complicit in possible war crimes. EU officials have confirmed to the   
   media that a full account of the meeting was circulated to all member   
   governments, but all references to the agreement were deleted before the   
   record was made public.   
      
   The minutes of the meeting of 31 officials in Athens involved a US   
   delegation headed by a Justice Department representative, and was prepared   
   by Greek officials because Greece held the rotating presidency of the EU at   
   the time. The document was given the title, "New Transatlantic Agenda, EU-US   
   meeting on Justice and Home Affairs."   
      
   In the full unpublished version the following is reported: "Both sides   
   agreed on areas where cooperation could be improved [including] the exchange   
   of data between border management services, increased use of European   
   transit facilities to support the return of criminal/inadmissible aliens,   
   coordination with regard to false documents training and improving the   
   cooperation in removals" (emphasis added).   
      
   Tony Bunyan of Statewatch commented, "Whether these US transit flights are   
   for 'criminals,' 'inadmissible aliens' or for rendition the same questions   
   arise. Do EU governments know how many times their airports have been used   
   for transit by US government flights? Which airports are used? How many   
   people have been moved in this way? How many 'criminals' and how many   
   'inadmissible aliens'? If they do then why are the facts and figures not   
   available? And if they do not know, why not? If EU governments do not know   
   who is being moved and where by foreign agencies using their airports then   
   they are grossly irresponsible. To 'aid and abet' the movement of people in   
   an inhuman or degrading way or to be tortured is a crime."   
      
   EU member states would rather be accused of "irresponsibility" than to be   
   found to have knowingly participated in a crime-hence their being forced to   
   agree to various investigations into renditions. But this has been   
   accompanied by repeated denials of any knowledge of what was going on,   
   despite hundreds of CIA flights being logged by plane spotters across   
   Europe-particularly in Germany and Britain.   
      
   With regard to the latest revelations and how the report of the Athens   
   discussion was censored, a spokesman for the EU Council of Ministers said   
   this section had been deleted along with others referring to US policy as a   
   "courtesy" to Washington.   
      
   In fact, the US was the state least interested in maintaining secrecy about   
   renditions. It was official policy and the Bush administration had been   
   openly lobbying EU member states for their support and cooperation. For   
   example, on February 23, 2004, an earlier meeting between the EU and the US   
   took place in Dublin under the same "New Transatlantic Agenda." The US   
   proposed various measures to strengthen Europe's anti-terrorist   
   capabilities, but the most significant with respect to renditions and   
   torture was to "adopt legislation" allowing "national security intelligence   
   information" from a third state to be "used in a criminal proceeding."   
      
   The main objection to the use of such evidence from a third state is that it   
   often comes from regimes that practice torture. In order to circumvent such   
   considerations, the US proposed that the use of such information would only   
   be subject to "the conditions, if any, agreed upon between the competent   
   authorities in the originating State and those in the receiving State"-the   
   competent authorities being security services and governments. If this   
   legislation was implemented the agreement on such "conditions" would   
   override the power of the courts.   
      
   The heat on both the US and Europe's governments was also turned up by an   
   initial report on December 13 by Dick Marty, the Swiss senator investigating   
   allegations of secret CIA prisons for the Council of Europe, a 46-state body   
   overseeing human rights issues. He issued a statement after a Paris meeting   
   of the council that his information so far "reinforces the credibility of   
   the allegations concerning the transfer and temporary detention of   
   individuals, without any judicial involvement, in European countries."   
      
   Marty stated that CIA prisoners in Europe were apparently abducted and moved   
   between countries illegally and that he believed collaboration by European   
   secret services over the flights went well beyond exchanges of information,   
   "I think it would have been difficult for these actions to have taken place   
   without a degree of collaboration," he said.   
      
   Having said this much, he then offered a get-out for the EU states,   
   suggesting that "it is possible that secret services did not inform their   
   governments." If it were proved that European governments did know about the   
   renditions, he warned, they "would stand accused of having seriously   
   breached their human rights obligations to the Council of Europe."   
      
   Marty said he did not think the US was still holding prisoners in Europe,   
   and had probably moved them to North Africa last month-most likely to   
   Morocco.   
      
   Franco Frattini, EU commissioner for justice and home affairs, has pledged   
   his full support for an inquiry into whether the CIA maintained secret   
   facilities in European states-Poland and Romania have been named. He told   
   members of the European parliament in Strasbourg that international agencies   
   should forward satellite imagery and flight data to the Council of Europe,   
   as requested by Marty. However, Frattini made clear that he did not endorse   
   Marty's statement that it was "credible" the US had broken the law by   
   temporarily detaining prisoners in Europe and shipping them across borders.   
   "There is no evidence confirming allegations that have been made," he   
   claimed. "No accusations can be considered founded without evidence."   
      
   In Britain, James Crawford, Whewell professor of international law at   
   Cambridge University, told an all-party parliamentary group set up to   
   investigate renditions that the British government would also be breaking   
   the law if it failed to investigate allegations that the CIA transferred   
   terrorist suspects via Britain. "Credible information suggesting that   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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