Guantanamos in Europe?

The CIA's 'Black Sites'

Guantanamos in Europe?

Der Spiegal November 7, 2005


Is the CIA using secret locations in Europe to
interrogate prisoners in America's war against
terror? Reports about "black sites" have unsettled
even the Bush administration's closest European
partners.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen
considers himself "America's best friend" in
Europe. He even broke a long-standing Danish
tradition of seeking parliament-wide consensus in
contentious foreign policy issues to back
Washington's decision to invade Iraq.

The CIA uses a modified version of the Gulfstream
5 jet. AP The CIA uses a modified version of the
Gulfstream 5 jet. But the right-wing leader's
closeness to United States President George W.
Bush may be changing. The government in Copenhagen
has accused its American friends of violating
Danish airspace 12 times since 2001 -- as recently
as Oct. 10 with an aircraft linked to the US
Central Intelligence Agency. The plane -- a
Gulfstream 5 often used by the CIA -- was on its
way from a US base in Keflavik, Iceland to
Budapest, Hungary and was presumed to be carrying
Islamic terror suspects.

Another CIA plane even landed in Copenhagen for 23
hours last March, prompting Danish Foreign
Minister Per Stig Moller in August to make "clear
to US officials that Denmark does not want its
airspace used for purposes that are in conflict
with international conventions."

Concern amongst European officials has grown
following a report published last week in the
Washington Post detailing an expansive network of
so-called "black sites" across Eastern Europe --
mostly prisons and military bases -- allegedly
used by the US intelligence community to house and
interrogate suspected Islamic terrorists.

EU worried about torture

According to Danish sources, two top level
al-Qaida members, the group's operations chief Abu
Zubaida and planner of the 9/11 attacks Ramzi
Binalshibh, have been held at least temporarily in
Europe. The most damaging allegation is that the
CIA may be using "improved interrogation
techniques" that are outlawed by the United
Nations Convention Against Torture and US military
law when questioning prisoners overseas.

The group Human Rights Watch compared information
from former detainees and European officials with
150 flights from 33 aircraft thought to be used
for American intelligence activities. The analysis
highlighted several destinations in Eastern Europe
-- including airports in Skopje, Macedonia and
Timisioara and Bucharest, Romania in 2004. A year
earlier, flights headed to both Prague in the
Czech Republic and the supposedly closed small
airport Szymany in northeastern Poland.

Understandably, officials from those countries
have either denied involvement in the CIA's plans
or have remained silent. According to the
Washington Post, only the leaders and top
intelligence officers of each host country are
aware of the black sites. Czech Interior
Minister FrantiA!ek Bublan admitted
American intelligence officials asked a month ago
if several people could be flow in from Guantanamo
Bay in Cuba for "secure asylum," but Prague turned
down the request.

It's also known that the CIA abducted a German
citizen of Arab descent -- Khaled el-Masri -- in
Macedonia in 2003. Unfortunately, Masri was the
victim of mistaken identity, but he was still held
and interrogated in Skopje for 23 days before
being taken by US intelligence operatives to
prison in Afghanistan.

Europe's Guantanamo?

Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo has been compared to the
US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. DPA Camp
Bondsteel in Kosovo has been compared to the US
base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The Americans are
also active in other parts of the Balkans. Not far
from Macedonia, in the heart of Kosovo, the US
government even operates a Gitmo-style camp with
its own prison and landing strip around 30
kilometers east of Pristina. Originally used to
house members of the Albanian independence group
the UCK, Camp Bondsteel -- like Guantanamo -- is
an overseas US enclave existing in legal limbo.

The United States has also used the
Mihail-Kogalniceanu military airport on Romania's
Black Sea coast as a base for operations in Iraq
since 2003. According to Human Rights Watch, US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld inspected the
base in October 2004. In recent months, there have
been reports in Romania of terrorists being
transported to unknown locations, but there has
been no official confirmation. Washington's
unspoken policy in its war on terror has often
been to only inform the countries directly
affected. Allies in transit countries are
generally left in the dark.

But in a sign that European governments are
growing impatient with these clandestine
operations, some no longer appear to be prepared
to accept such conditions. "It's now the EU's
turn," says one high-ranking German official. "If
the reports are true, there will be plenty
explaining to do." Members of the European
Parliament are demanding that EU Justice
Commissioner Franco Frattini and EU foreign policy
chief Javier Solana investigate the allegations.

Up till now, the European Commission in Brussels
says it has "absolutely no evidence for the
existence of secret prisons" in Europe. But
western intelligence agencies have more
information. "We know these places exist," says
one official. "But the exact details are kept
extremely secret."