Spain Looks Into C.I.A.'s Handling of Detainees

Spain Looks Into C.I.A.'s Handling of Detainees
By STEPHEN GREY and RENWICK McLEAN

LONDON, Nov. 11 -

On the Spanish island of

Majorca, the police quietly opened a criminal

investigation in March after a local newspaper

reported a series of visits to the island's

international airport by planes known to

regularly operate for the Central Intelligence

Agency.

Now, it has emerged that an investigative judge

in Palma has ordered the police inquiry to be

sent to Spain's national court, to consider

whether the C.I.A. was routing planes carrying

terrorism suspects through Majorca as part of

its so-called rendition program.

Under that system, the United States has

bypassed normal extradition procedures to

secretly transfer at least 100 suspects to

third countries where, according to allegations

by human rights groups and former detainees

themselves, some of the suspects have been

tortured.

The program is the focus of a number of

European investigations. Spain is the third

country in Europe to open a judicial inquiry

into potential criminal offenses committed by

C.I.A. operatives related to renditions. The

other two are Germany and Italy, which on

Friday formally requested the extradition of 22

people said to be C.I.A. operatives linked to

the suspected kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric

in 2003.

Last week, related investigations were started

by the European Union and the Council of Europe

to look into reports of secret C.I.A. jails for

terrorism suspects in Eastern Europe.

An inquiry seems likely by the United Nations'

special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak.

Last week he said that if reports of the

C.I.A.'s activities proved correct, then the

agency was engaged in a "systematic practice of

enforced disappearance."

Bartolomé Barceló, the chief prosecutor for the

Majorca region, ordered the inquiry there after

the newspaper Diario de Mallorca published its

report.

In a 114-page police report dated April 14, the

investigators said they obtained details of the

planes' flight plans, passengers and crews by

interviewing ground staff, consulting aviation

documents and examining the registers of the

two hotels where the men and women stayed.

Two of the planes examined have been widely

identified as involved in rendition operations

and as owned by the C.I.A.

The police report said the planes' operator was

Stevens Express Leasing, a Tennessee-registered

corporation that, according to inquiries by The

New York Times, owns several planes operated

for the C.I.A.

A third plane, privately owned and United

States-registered, has been regularly hired by

the C.I.A. The police identified up to 42

American operatives and crew members on the

flights that landed in Spain. One crew of 11

flew on a route that matched exactly that

described by Binyam Muhammad, a suspected

accomplice of another suspect, Jose Padilla.

None of the 42 Americans named in the Spanish

police report as passengers or crew aboard the

three alleged C.I.A. planes are so far accused

of any crime, and their identities have not

been made public.

The New York Times has obtained the names and

tried to trace the people involved.

At least 18 shared addresses at a handful of

mailboxes in Virginia, close to the C.I.A.'s

headquarters, and many had Social Security

numbers issued within the last five years. The

name listed as a pilot has a listed address at

the same mailbox in Vienna, Va., used by a

senior executive of Stevens Express Leasing.

Stephen Grey reported from London for this

article, and Renwick McLean from Madrid. Margot

Williams contributed reporting from New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/international

/europe/14spain.html?pagewanted=print
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