by Jon Boyle
Published on Tuesday, January 24, 2006 by Reuters
STRASBOURG,
France – The United States flew detainees to other countries where they
would be tortured and European governments probably knew about it, the
head of a European investigation into the controversy said on Tuesday.
But Swiss
senator Dick Marty said in a preliminary report for the Council of
Europe human rights watchdog that he had found no irrefutable evidence
to confirm allegations that the CIA operated secret detention centers
in Europe.
His
report kept pressure on the CIA and European governments over the
allegations that the U.S. intelligence agency flew prisoners through
European airports to jails in third countries, but critics said it
offered no hard new evidence.
The
September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. landmarks sparked a U.S. global war
on terrorism against al Qaeda and led to the invasion of Iraq. Public
opinion has hardened in Europe since deadly bomb attacks in London last
July and in Madrid in March, 2004.
“There
is a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the
existence of a system of ‘relocation’ or ‘outsourcing of torture’,”
Marty told the 46-nation Council, based in the eastern French city of
Strasbourg.
He
said it had been proved that “individuals have been abducted, deprived
of their liberty and transported to different destinations in Europe,
to be handed over to countries in which they have suffered degrading
treatment and torture.”
He
estimated that more than 100 people had been involved in “renditions”
— delivering prisoners to jails in third countries, where they may
have been mistreated or tortured.
“It is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware,” he said.
EVIDENCE LACKING ON DETENTION CENTRES
But
Marty said there was no firm evidence of detention centers in Europe
similar to the one operated by the United States at Guantanamo Bay in
Cuba.
Marty,
who has said European states turned a blind eye to the “dirty work”,
said not all countries appeared to want to cooperate with his probe.
The United States did not immediately respond to Marty’s interim findings.
The
U.S. government has neither denied nor confirmed the reports of secret
detention centers, first made in the Washington Post newspaper in
November. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said Washington
has done nothing illegal.
The
allegations followed widespread anger in Europe about the U.S.
treatment of prisoners in Iraq and detainees at Guantanamo Bay, where
hundreds of people judged by the U.S. military to be illegal combatants
are held without charge.
Denis
MacShane, a British member of parliament and former minister for Europe
in U.S. ally Britain, told reporters Marty’s report “has more holes
than a Swiss cheese.” A British government spokesman said there seemed
to be no new facts.
European
Security Commissionner Franco Frattini called on European Union member
states to cooperate fully with the investigations but said the European
Commission would not draw any conclusions yet because the investigation
is still going on.
Additional reporting by Ingrid Melander in Brussels, Kate Baldwin in London.
Copyright © 2006 Reuters