Reykjavik Transit

MI5 and MI5 officers : no torture collusion charges

2012-01-12T09:20:00.003-05:00

Abdel Hakin Belhaj, a commander of the rebel forces in Libya, says he was tortured after being arrested in 2004. He says that he was taken from Bangkok to Libya by a joint CIA and MI6 operation which was set up to help Col Muammar Gaddafi round up his enemies.
In the statement, the Metropolitan Police said that it had received a complaint from him relating to his rendition to Libya and information relating to a second similar case.

The statement said: "The allegations raised in the two specific cases concerning the alleged rendition of named individuals to Libya and the alleged ill-treatment of them in Libya are so serious that it is in the public interest for them to be investigated now rather than at the conclusion of the Detainee Inquiry."
Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service said MI5 and MI6 officers would not be charged over separate torture collusion claims.
He is also suing the UK over his transfer to Libya and subsequent torture.

The government has set up an inquiry into claims of rendition.

Rendition: Bucharest black site photos

2011-12-08T10:12:00.004-05:00

Between 2003 and 2006, the CIA operated a secret prison from the building's basement, bringing in high-value terror suspects for interrogation and detention, minutes from the center of Romania’s capital city of Bucharest. The CIA prison opened for business in the fall of 2003, after the CIA decided to empty the black site in Poland, according to former U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the detention program with reporters.
Shuttling detainees into the facility without being seen was relatively easy. After flying into Bucharest, the detainees were brought to the site in vans. CIA operatives then drove down a side road and entered the compound through a rear gate that led to the actual prison.
The detainees could then be unloaded and whisked into the ground floor of the prison and into the basement.
The basement consisted of six prefabricated cells, each with a clock and arrow pointing to Mecca, the officials said. The cells were on springs, keeping them slightly off balance and causing disorientation among some detainees.
The CIA declined to comment on the prison.
During the first month of their detention, the detainees endured sleep deprivation and were doused with water, slapped or forced to stand in painful positions, several former officials said. Waterboarding, the notorious interrogation technique that simulates drowning, was not performed in Romania, they said.

Richmore reveals records of CIA rendition charters

2011-09-01T12:07:00.002-04:00

Richmor case suggests that the CIA's practice of using charter flights cost tens of millions of dollars for private planes in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks to transport terror suspects for questioning and its own personnel.to transport . Richmor billed at a rate of $4,900 an hour for the use of the plane and earned at least $6 million over three years, according to the invoices and other court records. Richmor accounted for only a small percentage of the CIA’s business, according to publicly available records. WP

MI6 AND mi5 torture policy

2011-08-04T14:03:00.003-04:00

MI6 Sir John Sawers

MI5 and MI6 secret interrogation policy operated until it was rewritten on the orders of the coalition government last July.: Document shows intelligence officers instructed to weigh importance of information sought against pain inflicted
here

USG assures Ireland it will abide by Irish Law

2011-01-13T16:56:00.003-05:00

Guardian quotes Wikileaks:
A senior Irish civil servant warned the US embassy in Dublin that Irish government lawyers might be forced to conclude that Ireland was in violation of torture conventions if aircraft were found to have used Shannon airport for rendition flights involving terrorist suspects, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable.

The 2004 cable was sent as the Irish government was beginning to come under particularly intense pressure over the appearance at Shannon of a Gulfstream jet allegedly used to transport prisoners which allegedly had its tail number changed. The senior civil servant told the diplomats some Irish ministers felt they were "going out on a limb defending US use of Shannon".

There have been a series of WikiLeaks releases on Shannon. In a 2007 cable (published last month) the then Irish foreign minister, Dermot Ahern, was described as "convinced" during a meeting with US diplomats that at least three flights involved in renditions had refuelled at the airport.

The allegations surrounding the jet referred to in the 2004 cable had "raised suspicions and caused confusion" with the Irish government, according to the senior civil servant.

He cautioned that if it were ever to be discovered that the US was not good on its word or had transported prisoners through Shannon in the context of the war on terrorism, there would be enormous political pressure on the government.

As for the legal issue, he said that were a plane to include Shannon in an itinerary that also included transporting prisoners, GOI [government of Ireland] lawyers might be forced to conclude that the GOI itself was in violation of torture conventions

The cable stated that the Jonathan S Benton, deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Dublin, told the senior civil servant: "that the USG [US government] would be in no position to respond to the detailed questions asked about particular planes, such as the Gulfstream jet, but stood by its commitment to abide by Irish law, consult with the Irish and avoid actions that would bring embarrassment to the Irish government."

Amnesty on 'Open Secret' EU role in rendition

2010-11-15T09:20:00.005-05:00

Amnesty International publishes report on complicity in rendition of EU members such as Poland and other former Eastern Bloc countries. here

Keflavik: 1,000 in Sudurnes lost jobs

2010-10-01T23:42:00.003-04:00

“People don’t seem to realize that here in Sudurnes, we are going through the second crisis,”. “It has only been four years since the [US] defense force left the country, at which point more than 1,000 people lost their jobs.

Jeppesen Dataplan: USCA overturns,dismisses

2010-09-08T19:22:00.003-04:00

By a six-to-five vote, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, reversing an earlier decision, dismissed a lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary accused of arranging flights for the C.I.A.’s “extraordinary rendition” program, as it is known. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the case on behalf of five former prisoners who say they were tortured because of the program – and that Jeppesen was complicit in their treatment.

Judge Raymond C. Fisher described the case as presenting “a painful conflict between human rights and national security.” But, he said, the majority had “reluctantly” concluded that the lawsuit represented “a rare case” in which the government’s need to protect state secrets trumped the plaintiffs’ need to have any day in court. Judge Fisher took the unusual step of urging the executive branch and Congress at length to consider granting reparations to torture victims if secret records indicated that their allegations were true.

2010-08-17T10:33:00.003-04:00

The CIA has tapes of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh being interrogated in a secret overseas prison. The tapes depict Binalshibh's interrogation sessions at a Moroccan-run facility the CIA used near Rabat in 2002. more

At 8:10 p.m. on Sept. 23, 2003, the Boeing 737 took off from a runway in Rabat. On board were al-Hawsawi, al-Nashiri, Zubaydah and Binalshibh. At 1 a.m. the following day, the plane touched down at Guantánamo.
In early March 2004, as the legal documents piled up at the Supreme Court, the high court announced that oral arguments would be held in April. After that, a ruling could come at any time, and everyone at the island prison — secretly or not — would be covered.

On March 27,2004, a Gulfstream IV jet left Guantánamo Bay . The plane landed in Rabat the next morning. By the time the Supreme Court ruled June 28 that detainees should have access to U.S. courts, the CIA had once again scattered Zubaydah, al-Nashiri and the others throughout the black sites.

Two years later, after The Washington Post revealed the existence of the program, Bush emptied the prison network. Fourteen men, including the four who had been at Guantánamo Bay years earlier, were moved to the island prison. They have remained there ever since.

Bagram trials began June 1?

2010-06-01T12:11:00.003-04:00

On June 1, a detainee will stand with a lawyer and plead his case in front of an Afghan judge, said Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the deputy commander for detention operations.in official detention facility in Parwan, a new prison recently opened at the edge of Bagram Air Base. A January 2011 deadline to hand over the facility has been pushed back, Martins said. The hope now is to transfer some of the holding cells to Afghan control by the end of the year and complete the rest by early 2012.

Fadi al-Maqalah, detainee, et al. v Gates USAppDC 09-5265:

The appellate court ruled that there was no right to federal court review for the detainees, who say they were captured outside of Afghanistan, far from any battlefield, and then shipped to Bagram to be held indefinitely in harsh conditions.

Bagram prisoners lose in USAppDC

2010-05-21T12:52:00.005-04:00

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rules the jurisdiction of the U.S. courts does not extend to foreigners held at Bagram Air Force Base in the Afghan theater of war, and reverses a U.S. district judge who allowed the detainees' petitions.
David Sentelle, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, is an appointee of President Ronald Reagan. Harry Edwards was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, and David Tatel by President Bill Clinton. David Sentelle is the only member who remains from the panel that appointed Kenneth Starr as an independent counsel, who, at the time, was considered to be a partisan choice.

Obama's Black Jail

2010-05-11T09:07:00.004-04:00

The US airbase at Bagram in Afghanistan contains a facility for detainees that is distinct from its main prison,While Mr. Obama signed an order to eliminate so-called black sites run by the Central Intelligence Agency in January, it did not also close this jail, which is run by military Special Operations forces.

Nine former prisoners have told the BBC that they were held in a separate building, and subjected to abuse. The facility is referred to by many former prisoners as the Tor Jail, which translates as "black jail".

The US military says the main prison, now called the Detention Facility in Parwan, is the only detention facility on the base. Manfred Nowak, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, said that the site fell into something of a legal limbo.

Eyjafjallajökull

2010-04-17T13:31:00.002-04:00

Icelanders laughing at our efforts to pronounce that volcano should pronounce the word "match"

easier for you would be the section of New York's West Bronx named for the creek that runs through it:

Spuyten Duyvil

Ghost Writer: glimpses of waterboarding

2010-03-05T09:33:00.003-05:00

The glimpses of televised waterboarding will provoke gasps among the audience. But those who have no interest in the torture of hapless foreigners can forget international affairs and simply revel in the director’s dark enchantments. Mr Polanski has made a perfect film of Mr Harris’s intricate page-turner—one that will outlast his own present difficulties, and Mr Blair’s as well.

">

Ghost Writer: a fine piece of mischief

2010-03-03T10:06:00.004-05:00

“The Ghost Writer” plays off the British public’s disillusion with Tony Blair and the recurring complaints about Blair’s alleged collaboration with the C.I.A. Yet, when Lang is cornered by the Ghost, the P.M. speaks with impressive conviction. In effect, he defends the use of torture; he takes the Cheneyesque hard line, ridiculing liberals who want safety and, at the same time, the luxury of high-mindedness. The answer to the question of why he’s so acquiescent to the Americans is worked out in thriller (rather than policy) terms. It’s the kind of supposition that may strike viewers, here and in Britain, as frivolous, or just plain wrong, but it’s a fine piece of mischief—suggestive, wounding to Blair, and, as a fiction, emotionally gratifying in the way of le Carré’s conspiracy plots.

">

a fine piece of mischief

Gitmo: Difficult to prosecute, but too dangerous

2010-01-23T11:15:00.003-05:00

Matthew G. Olsen a deputy assistant attorney general in the National Security Division of the Department of Justice.

The Obama administration has decided to continue to imprison without trials nearly 50 detainees at the Guantánamo Bay military prison in Cuba because a high-level task force has concluded that they are too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release, an administration official said on January 21.

Blackwater "never under contract to participate"

2009-12-11T13:54:00.002-05:00

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Xe Services, said Blackwater was never under contract to participate in covert raids with CIA or Special Forces troops "in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else." Corallo added: "Any allegation to the contrary by any news organization would be false."
Some requests from the field for lethal raids were rejected at CIA headquarters because they posed excessive risks to the U.S. teams or to civilians, or because intelligence experts merely wanted to keep watching the prospective targets.

But when the time came to carry out those raids -- often against figures who were thought to be al-Qaeda leaders -- some CIA field officers assigned responsibilities among the available personnel without regard to which ones were contractors or federal employees, according to the source, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss classified operations.

That meant Blackwater personnel helped to kill some of the targets and did not merely defend the CIA officers taking part in the raids, the source said.

Review of all Blackwater contracts with C.I.A.

2009-12-11T10:27:00.004-05:00

On an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, Blackwater personnel played central roles in “snatch and grab” operations, clandestine raids with C.I.A. officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees. Separately, former Blackwater employees said they helped provide security on some C.I.A. flights transporting detainees in the years after the 2001 terror attacks in the United States. George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, would not comment on Blackwater’s ties to the agency. But he said the C.I.A. employs contractors to “enhance the skills of our own work force, just as American law permits.”

“Contractors give you flexibility in shaping and managing your talent mix — especially in the short term — but the accountability’s still yours,” he said. The C.I.A. director, recently initiated an internal review examining all Blackwater contracts with the agency to ensure that the company was performing no missions that were “operational in nature,”

Picked up by the SAS, then handed over

2009-12-07T10:02:00.003-05:00

According to the lunar Muslim calendar, 2004's new year - the beginning of the month of Muharram - fell on February 22. Amanatullah Ali, a rice merchant from the village of Ghabyanwal in Pakistan's Punjab, was coming to the end of a business trip to Iran. He crossed the border in Iraq - a pilgrimage considered especially auspicious during Muharram. While he was on his way there, in or around Baghdad, he was picked up by the SAS, then handed over to the Americans and flown to Bagram which has 650 detainees. On three occasions since he was detained, the Red Cross has helped Amanatullah to speak to his family by telephone,
'He wasn't captured by Americans,' Abdul Razzaq says, 'but by British. It was the British who took him.'

Secretly extradited to the United States

2009-12-04T09:48:00.004-05:00

Federal agents arrested Hossein Ardebili an Iranian attempting to purchase phased array radar in Georgia, Eastern Europe in '07 and secretly extradited him to the United States. Although Ardebili wanted to meet the salesmen in Dubai, the undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent lured him to Georgia. Phased array antennae date from WWII and are used in FM radio broadcasting as well as in radar, where the radar beam is electronically steered through phased array systems to direct radar beams fast enough to maintain a fire control quality track on many targets simultaneously while also controlling several in-flight missiles.

The Iranian, who has been quietly jailed in a Philadelphia-area prison for nearly two years, pleaded guilty to charges in 2008 and faces up to 140 years in prison.

The case had been sealed from public view while U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents scoured the dealer's laptop to pursue hundreds of leads about Iran's covert effort to acquire American military gear. Ardebili, whose nickname online was Alex Dave, negotiated the purchases of 1,000 state-of-the-art radar shifters, 10 gyro chip sensors used in advanced aircraft applications, and a digital air computer for an F-4 aircraft, prosecutors said.Ardebili, a former Iranian government procurement official, pleaded guilty May 19, 2008, to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which essentially prohibits arms and other sales to Iran. He was also charged with money-laundering and conspiracy.

Rendition to Lithuania black site

2009-11-20T15:00:00.002-05:00

In July 2005, a CIA-chartered Gulfstream IV, tail number N63MU, flew direct from Kabul to Vilnius. Several former intelligence officials involved in the CIA's prison program confirmed the flight as a prisoner transfer to Lithuania. The Vilnius prison was closed.

Chris Higgenbotham and Steve Hersem, FBI, sued for rendition

2009-11-11T11:11:00.003-05:00

A suit, brought on behalf of Amir Meshal by the American Civil Liberties Union, is the first by a U.S. citizen seeking damages for the practice of "rendition." An American who was captured by Kenyan forces in January 2007 filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington on Tuesday, arguing that FBI agents allegedly involved in his interrogation and transfer to other countries violated his constitutional rights.

Executive to implement extraordinary rendition

2009-11-05T15:34:00.005-05:00

“We decline to create, on our own, a new cause of action against officers and employees of the federal government,” Chief Judge Dennis G. Jacobs wrote in a 59-page majority opinion joined by six other judges.

Judge Jacobs said that it was for the executive branch to “decide how to implement extraordinary rendition, and for the elected members of Congress — and not for us as judges — to decide whether an individual may seek compensation” from government officials for a constitutional violation.

Four judges issued dissenting opinions, in which they all joined, running a total of 117 pages. In one, Judge Guido Calabresi wrote, “I believe that when the history of this distinguished court is written, today’s majority decision will be viewed with dismay.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a former member of the Second Circuit appeals court, participated in the oral argument of the case last December, but was later elevated to the United States Supreme Court by President Obama and did not participate in the decision.
opinion

Italian court convicts 23 in CIA rendition case

2009-11-04T16:43:00.002-05:00

An Italian court on 04 November convicted 22 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force colonel of orchestrating the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric here in 2003 and flying him to Egypt, where he said he was tortured. The case is the only instance in which CIA operatives have faced a criminal trial for the controversial tactic of extraordinary rendition, under which terrorism suspects are seized in one country and forcibly transported to another without judicial oversight. A similar case involving a German citizen kidnapped in the Balkans has resulted in arrest warrants and a civil lawsuit but has not gone to trial.

The CIA and other U.S. officials have contended that extraordinary renditions, which began during the Clinton administration and accelerated under the Bush White House after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, are permissible under U.S. law to capture terrorism suspects in foreign countries.
"I am not guilty. I am only responsible for following an order I received from my superiors," R. S. Lady said. "It was not a criminal act. It was a state affair."

Dragon Zone Oil Maneuvers

2009-09-25T10:06:00.003-04:00

This week Norway's Riis Johansen held a seminar on exploration in Arctic areas and led a delegation to Jan Mayen to take a closer look at the possibilities for exploration.The plans are only territory establishment, they say, and will never be carried through, Norway just wants to show strength in front of Iceland, who recently opened up for search activities in adjoining sea areas.

Norway and Iceland in 2008 signed an agreement clarifying an accord from 1981 on exploring for oil and gas between Iceland and Jan Mayen, which was annexed by Norway in 1926. Iceland has a head start and started offering licenses this year in the southern part of the so-called Jan Mayen Ridge, for which only two companies applied. The agreement states that Iceland is entitled to 25 percent of the potential oil production in Norway’s territory in their joint fossil fuel exploitation area between Iceland and Jan Mayen, dubbed the “Dragon Zone,” and Norway to 25 percent of the potential oil production in Iceland’s territory.

Results will be announced in October, Bloomberg.com reports.

USA did not sign "enforced disappearances" ban

2009-09-08T10:41:00.003-04:00

The Bush administration declined to endorse a treaty meant to bar and punish "enforced disappearances" so that those overseeing the CIA's secret prison system would not be criminally prosecuted under its provisions. At least 81 countries have now signed, including all members of the European Union and many nations with checkered human rights records, such as Algeria, Argentina, Cuba and Guatemala.

A White House official said the Obama administration is reviewing the previous U.S. stance on the treaty as part of a wider look at international human rights accords that Washington has not signed. The official did not say when a decision might be made.

Rendition SOP

2009-09-06T19:02:00.002-04:00

Huffington
ACLU

Sending to third countries for detention,interrogation

2009-08-24T20:06:00.004-04:00

The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terror suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but will monitor their treatment to ensure they are not tortured, administration officials said on 24 August.
Contractor Raymond Azar was arrested in Afghanistan, hooded, stripped and flown to the U.S. on a Gulfstream V jet that flew him from Bagram air base, outside Kabul, to Virginia.
Azar was "treated professionally," kept in a heated room, offered food and water repeatedly and "provided with comfortable chairs to sit in."

They said he was photographed naked and subjected to a cavity search to ensure that he did not carry hidden weapons and was fit for travel. Court records confirmed that Azar was shackled at the ankles, waist and wrists and made to wear a blindfold, hood and earphones aboard the plane.

Prosecutors also said that FBI agents read Azar his rights against self-incrimination on three occasions, and that he "voluntarily" waived them. Azar, 45, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to commit bribery, the only charge against him

Black Sites

2009-08-12T22:23:00.002-04:00

Kyle D. Foggo, Dusty: In November 2004, he was named the C.I.A.’s executive director, in effect its day-to-day administrative chief. He was eventually convicted in a bribery scandal involving former Representative Randall Cunningham of California. Mr. Foggo pleaded guilty and is serving a sentence on the fraud count. here

2009-07-22T14:52:00.002-04:00

ENDING IRELAND’S ROLE IN RENDITIONS

Shannon Airport

Mauritania, right?

2009-07-02T22:20:00.003-04:00

Working with friendly foreign intelligence services, the C.I.A. built or renovated buildings in several countries, including Afghanistan, Thailand and Poland. After the location of the prisons in Eastern Europe was revealed in late 2005, C.I.A. officials scrambled to move the prisoners to other, still-secret places. here and see and this

Using foreigners driven by closing secret prisons

2009-05-23T14:37:00.004-04:00

How the United States is dealing with terrorism suspects beyond those already in the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was a question Mr. Obama did not address in the speech he gave Thursday about his antiterrorism policies. The United States is now relying heavily on foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects. The current approach, which began in the last two years of the Bush administration and has gained momentum under Mr. Obama, is driven in part by court rulings and policy changes that have closed the secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Some agency officials say a directive from U.S. President Barack Obama to strictly follow the Army Field Manual in interrogations -- which bars waterboarding and other harsh techniques authorized for the CIA by the Bush administration -- will result in confusion and hurt its ability to gain information from terror suspects. Global Strategies Group says that its employees have not been found to have engaged in improper conduct in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

There are extreme situations

2009-04-13T09:39:00.002-04:00

Obama hasn't banned the process known as "extraordinary rendition." This technique has been used by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies for more than 30 years to seize people overseas, either unilaterally or with permission of the host country, and take them somewhere else for interrogation and possible judicial action. That authority hasn't changed, nor has the CIA's ability to work with foreign intelligence services that are interrogating terrorist suspects.
"The Obama team agrees with Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson that the Constitution isn't "a suicide pact," and it understands that there are extreme situations where the rules on interrogation might have to be stretched." David Ignatius

Use of contractors in detention operations

2009-04-10T08:53:00.005-04:00

I have long fought to ban the use of contractors in interrogations and detention operations. So, I am very pleased that Mr. Panetta has announced that contractors will no longer conduct interrogations. I have introduced legislation this year and in the last Congress that would have banned such interrogations, and the CIA is now following this policy.

“The Director has also made a decision to terminate a contract to conduct security at the remaining CIA sites until they are decommissioned. I have been pushing to have the contract terminated and am very pleased with the Director’s decision. In addition to placing responsibility for detention and interrogation in the hands of government employees, where it belongs, Mr. Panetta has indicated that having the CIA carry out site security will save up to $4 million.

Statement of Senator Feinstein on Decision by CIA Director Panetta To Ban Contractor Interrogations, Terminate Site Contract. The sites were in Thailand, Romania and Poland, among other places.

Underlying charge of complicity

2009-03-07T20:13:00.002-05:00

Two members of the banned group Lashkar e Tayyiba, which has links to al-Qaeda, understood to be Pakistani nationals, apprehended by UK forces in Iraq had been transferred to US custody in 2004 then transported to Afghanistan. They are still being held in Afghanistan, where they are classified as "unlawful enemy combatants". Defence secretary John Hutton said there was no "substantiated evidence" that they had been mistreated or subjected to abuse there. "There is a underlying charge of complicity with serious abuse of people detained by British forces on operations overseas."

Remaining USNS Lewis and Clark pirates gone

2009-03-05T08:54:00.002-05:00

U.S. Navy on March 5 handed over seven suspected Somali pirates who were arrested in the Indian Ocean to the Kenyan police. Dressed in orange overalls and bare feet, the suspects who looked frail and tired were led into the cells of the port police station under tight guard. In January, the U.S entered into an agreement with Kenya to hand over suspected pirates to be tried in the country. Britain has already reached a similar agreement to hand over pirates to the Kenyan authorities. U.S. Embassy in Kenya released nine others in Bomasso Puntland, implying Kenya wouldn't accept them.

Bush DOJ Legal opinion on extraordinary rendition

2009-03-02T23:08:00.003-05:00

Steven G. Bradbury of the Justice Department; Daniel J. Dell’Orto, a Pentagon official; and former Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson.
Memorandum Regarding the President's Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captured Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations (03-13-2002) and other legal opinions by the Department of Legal Counsel (OLC)are now available here

UK statements on rendition

2009-03-01T09:27:00.003-05:00

How the UK Government changed its story from denial to regret

No one told us

20 November, 2005

"These are privately chartered aircraft and they don't need to tell us who is on board."

Department of Transport

We don't keep track of such things

22 November, 2005

"Where passengers do not leave the airfield, the MoD ... does not record details of passengers."

Adam Ingram, then Defence minister

No one asked us

30 November, 2005

The Government is "not aware of the use of their territory or airspace for the purposes of extraordinary rendition, nor have we received any requests, [or] granted any permission for the use of UK territory or airspace for such purposes".

Foreign Office

It never happened

5 December, 2005

"We have no evidence to corroborate media allegations about use of UK territory in rendition operations."

Foreign Office

We have no record

13 December, 2005

"Careful research has been unable to identify any occasion ... when we have received a request for permission by the United States for a rendition through the United Kingdom territory or airspace .... Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories ... there is simply no truth in claims that the UK has been involved in rendition."

Jack Straw, then Foreign Secretary

There's no evidence

22 December, 2005

"I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that anything illegal has been happening here at all.

"I am not going to start ordering inquiries into this, that or the next thing when I have got no evidence to show whether this is right or not."

Tony Blair, then Prime Minister

We've done nothing illegal

20 January, 2006

"Anything we do in relation to rendition is in compliance with our international obligations. We fulfil our legal obligations."

Tony Blair's spokesman

They'd have to ask us first

16 February, 2006

"We have made clear to [the US] we expect them to seek permission to render detainees via British airspace."

Ian Pearson, then Foreign Office minister

We've never given permission

7 October, 2006

"Mr Hoon ... made clear that the British Government has not approved and will not approve a policy of supporting the transfer of individuals through the UK to places where there are substantial grounds to suspect that they face the risk of torture."

Foreign Office

OK, they did it twice. But that's all

25 February, 2008

"The two flights from the US already identified are the only ones we are aware of."

Foreign Office

Yes, we were involved. And we shouldn't have been

27 February, 2009

"In retrospect, it is clear to me that the transfer to Afghanistan of these two individuals should have been questioned at the time."

John Hutton, Defence Secretary

NCIS interrogation of prisoners afloat

2009-02-28T17:51:00.004-05:00

Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Middle East Field Office-Bahrain is aboard the USNS Lewis and Clark "conducting witness and suspect interviews."

USN offers pirates to Puntland

2009-02-27T13:37:00.003-05:00

The U.S. Embassy in Kenya has contacted authorities in Somalia's self-governing State of Puntland to 'transfer' over a group of suspected pirates, The U.S. Navy apprehended the pirate suspects in the Gulf of Aden and has been holding them aboard USNS Lewis and Clark. The implication is that Kenya doesn't want them.

No Brave New World - V

2009-02-18T07:39:00.003-05:00

Preventive Detention

Creative Rendition con'd

2009-02-15T09:18:00.005-05:00

Pirates captured in the Gulf of Aden were transferred to the USNS Lewis and Clark by helicopter, winched onto the ship's deck by crew members and led below deck to a holding area by US Marines.
"They will remain onboard (the Lewis and Clark) until information and evidence is assembled and evaluated so a decision can be made regarding their further transfer"
The nine-man crew that attempted a boarding of the MT Prem Divya were taken into custody joined seven other pirates captured February 11 from a small skiff containing that had attempted a forcible boarding of the MV Polaris using a ladder. Forcible boarding

Creative Rendition

2009-02-14T08:32:00.003-05:00

On February 11, the navy said, the MV Polaris, sailing under a Marshall Island flag, sent a distress call saying that seven men on a skiff had tried to force their way on board using a ladder. The Vella Gulf intercepted the skiff, found weapons and seized the suspects. For now the group is being held aboard the Lewis and Clark, a U.S. Navy ship equipped with bare-bones holding cells. Pentagon video footage showed thin black pallets and pillows spread on the floor and surrounded by coils of barbed wire.

USNS Lewis and Clark
Crew124 civilian, 11 naval, helicopter detachment when required
Overall Length210m
Length Between Perpendiculars199.55m
Beam32.2m
Design Draught9.12m
Scantling Draught (Maximum to Which Vessel is Loaded)9.50m
Displacement at Design Draught

The ships, which are not armed and are classified as non-combatant ships, are capable of operating independently for extended periods at sea while providing underway replenishment services and contribute to the US Navy's ability to maintain a forward presence.

“Thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials "

2009-02-10T12:09:00.003-05:00

Justice lawyer, Douglas N. Letter, made the state-secrets argument on February 9, startling several judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit hearing the Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. case.

“Is there anything material that has happened” that might have caused the Justice Department to shift its views, asked Judge Mary M. Schroeder, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, coyly referring to the recent election.
“No, your honor,” Mr. Letter replied.
Judge Schroeder asked, “The change in administration has no bearing?”
Once more, he said, “No, Your Honor.” The position he was taking in court on behalf of the government had been “thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration,” and “these are the authorized positions,” he said.

Extraordinary Rendition "remains a state secret"

2009-02-09T23:15:00.003-05:00

Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU: “Eric Holder’s Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government.
In Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.a San Jose Boeing subsidiary. A source inside of the Ninth U.S. District Court tells ABC News that a representative of the Justice Department stood up to say that its position hasn't changed, that new administration stands behind arguments that previous administration made, with no ambiguity at all. The DOJ lawyer said the entire subject matter remains a state secret.

No brave new world -IV

2009-02-06T15:50:00.003-05:00

Mr. Panetta also said the agency would continue the Bush administration practice of “rendition” — picking terrorism suspects off the street and sending them to a third country. But he said the agency would refuse to deliver a suspect into the hands of a country known for torture or other actions “that violate our human values.”

No brave new world -3rd

2009-01-22T10:22:00.003-05:00

President Obama is expected to sign executive orders that would allow its officers abroad to temporarily detain terrorism suspects and transfer them to other agencies, but would no longer allow the agency to carry out long-term detentions. They could also allow Mr. Obama to reinstate the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation operations in the future, by presidential order, as some have argued would be appropriate if Osama bin Laden or another top-level leader of Al Qaeda were captured. The White House might be open to allowing the use of methods other the 19 techniques allowed for the military.

No brave new world - con'd

2009-01-12T08:47:00.004-05:00

What Bush and Cheney did was different less in kind than in degree—creating a vast program of renditions and secret prisons, as well as aggressively pursuing "targeted killings" of "high-value targets." Congressional leaders were informed, but some said that the briefings were cryptic. National security is an unavoidably murky world. But it doesn't have to be quite so dark as Cheney et al. made it, loosing the dogs of war from some "undisclosed location." So much of the anger against the Bush administration could have been avoided if Bush had gone to Congress in the first place. Obama’s Cheney Dilemma By Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas

Evan Thomas claimed that when Americans are "under threat, we sort of make this pact" with the government allowing it to "[g]o off and be secret and do dirty things" without "tell[ing] us about it." wmv

Third director of national intelligence

2008-12-20T15:02:00.004-05:00

Retired Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair, Blair, a Rhodes scholar, will oversee the operation of secret CIA prisons overseas, and the ongoing wiretapping of e-mails and calls that pass through the United States according to government officials familiar with the selection process.

No brave new world

2008-12-15T22:48:00.002-05:00

John A Rizzo
New York Times on 14 Dec. 08:
Mr. Obama will soon face the same awful choices that confronted George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and he could well be forced to accept a central feature of their anti-terrorist methods: extraordinary rendition. If the choice is between non-deniable aggressive questioning conducted by Americans and deniable torturous interrogations by foreigners acting on behalf of the United States, it is almost certain that as president Mr. Obama will choose the latter.

Wild and unverifiable charges Denied

2008-10-13T09:12:00.006-04:00

alfred matua
In late 2006, the Bush administration backed a full-scale Ethiopian military offensive that ousted the Islamist authorities from Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. The fighting caused thousands of Somalis, including some who were suspected of terrorist links, to flee across the Kenya border.
An unknown number of them — likely dozens — were questioned by the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Addis Ababa. From February to May 2007, Ethiopian security officers daily transported detainees — including several pregnant women — to a villa where U.S. officials interrogated them about suspected terrorist links. At night the Ethiopian officers returned the detainees to their cells.

For the most part, detainees were sent home soon after their interrogation by U.S. agents ended. Of those known to have been interrogated by U.S. officials, just eight Kenyans remain. (A ninth Kenyan in Addis Ababa was rendered to Ethiopia in August 2007, after U.S. interrogations reportedly stopped.) read

"Wild and unverifiable charges that the Government deported Kenyans to Ethiopia are baseless. The Government has been very clear that it repatriated combatants to Somalia after they, the combatants, said they were not Kenyan. After a comprehensive audit, eight of the combatants and suspected terrorists were found to be Kenyan and brought back home. Claims of 19 Kenyans being held in Ethiopia are mere speculation and activism statements." read

No knowledge nor can I comment on renditions

2008-10-07T08:38:00.003-04:00

In April 2007, Ethiopia acknowledged it was holding 41 "suspected terrorists" from 17 countries. In October 2008, the US Government still refused to respond to questions on its role. Most detainees were released after a few months. The Ethiopian Government acknowledges that up to 10 foreign detainees are still in detention.

"I’m not sure if they have appeared before a court," Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Tekede Alemu. The minister rejected claims the detainees have been mistreated.

He also denied US agents had been allowed to control the interrogations of foreign prisoners.

"I have no knowledge of it nor as official policy can I comment on such matters," US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Jendayi Frazer. Jendayi E. Frazer was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for African Affairs on August 29, 2005. Prior to her current assignment, Dr. Frazer served as U.S. Ambassador to South Africa. Immediately before her ambassadorship, Dr. Frazer served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of African Affairs at the National Security Council.

Prior to joining the George W. Bush Administration, Dr. Frazer taught public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Frazer brought practical experience to that position, having worked as a political-military planner with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, during her time as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow.

Dr. Frazer earned her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Stanford University. Her doctoral dissertation examined Kenya's civilian-military relationship.

A Most Wanted Man

2008-10-02T17:11:00.007-04:00

A first-class novel about the most pressing moral and political concerns of our time, not least the scandal of extraordinary rendition. John le Carré is at his shrewd and cynical best in a novel tackling the key moral issues of the day, writes Charles Cumming. Telegraph

Decision at a higher level

2008-09-04T08:20:00.002-04:00

A two-year Canadian commission of inquiry found Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer, innocent of wrongdoing and blamed false allegations by the Mounted Police linking Mr. Arar to terrorism for his detention while he was changing planes. Mr. Arar, who was born in Syria, was returning home to Ottawa from a family vacation in Switzerland when border officials held him at Kennedy Airport in 2002.
Former police commissioner, Giuliano Zaccardelli said "what we did in no way influenced the American decision to send him to Syria.” Nor were his American counterparts to blame: “It’s clear to me that that decision went beyond the law enforcement agencies,” he said, adding, “a decision at a higher level, at a political level of some sort, had to have been taken.”

Uighurs Muslims from western China win round

2008-07-01T13:33:00.005-04:00

A federal appeals court found that accusations against a Muslim from western China held for more than six years were based on bare and unverifiable claims.The appellate panel reviewed Mr. Parhat’s case under a limited procedure Congress provided for challenging military hearings at Guantánamo. The case was argued before the Supreme Court’s decision on June 12 that detainees have a constitutional right to seek release in more expansive habeas corpus proceedings.

The 17 Uighurs now held at Guantánamo say they are allies, not enemies, of the United States. see 2006, opinion

Detained in the summer of 2007, now to Gitmo

2008-03-14T21:51:00.004-04:00

Muhammad Rahim, an Afghan national, was detained in the summer of 2007, according to a statement CIA Director Michael Hayden gave to CIA employees. The CIA transferred him into Defense Department custody earlier this week, according to Whitman. here
Muhammad Rahim was arrested from Lahore, Pakistan. The Nation

Mistakes in the reporting of the information - CIA

2008-02-21T11:49:00.002-05:00

CIA Director Michael Hayden has now acknowledged that two rendition flights carrying terror suspects refueled on British territory, despite earlier U.S. assurances that none of the secret flights since the Sept. 11 attacks had used British airspace or soil.

Hayden told agency employees that information previously provided to the British "turned out to be wrong."

The spy agency reviewed rendition records late last year and discovered that in 2002 the CIA had in fact refueled two separate planes, each carrying a terror suspect, on Diego Garcia, a British island territory in the Indian Ocean.

"The refueling, conducted more than five years ago, lasted just a short time. But it happened. That we found this mistake ourselves, and that we brought it to the attention of the British government, in no way changes or excuses the reality that we were in the wrong. An important part of intelligence work, inherently urgent, complex, and uncertain, is to take responsibility for errors and to learn from them," Hayden stated in the message obtained by The Associated Press.

Hayden said neither man was tortured and denied there has ever been a holding facility for CIA prisoners on Diego Garcia.

Hayden delivered the news to the British government last weekend on a previously scheduled trip to London.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced the rendition flights earlier Thursday. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he "shared the disappointment that everybody has" about the stops, and it was important to ensure it would not happen again.

One of the two prisoners is now jailed at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and the other was released to his home country, where he has since been freed by that government, according to a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Neither man was part of the CIA's interrogation and detention program, according to the official. In this case, the CIA only moved them from one country to another. The CIA has held and interrogated fewer than 100 prisoners in its detention program, using "enhanced" or harsh interrogation techniques on about a third of them, Hayden has told Congress.

The rendition program secretly transfers alleged terrorists from one country to another without formal extradition proceedings. It can involve moving prisoners to the custody of governments where harsh interrogation techniques, including torture, are known to be used. The U.S. government insists it does not move prisoners to third countries without assurances that torture will not be used.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in December 2005 that the United States respects the sovereignty of foreign countries when conducting intelligence operations within their borders, suggesting that the CIA conducts rendition flights with the permission of the governments involved.

The process of getting permission from governments through which rendition flights fly did not begin until after the 2002 flights in question, according to a State Department official.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Thursday that Rice spoke to Miliband about "the administrative error" on Wednesday.

"Unfortunately, even with the best intentions, unfortunately, even with the most rigorous searches and, unfortunately, with good technology, sometimes administrative errors occur and this was the case," McCormack said. "We regret that there was an error in initially providing inaccurate information to a good friend and ally."

McCormack said the review last year was "self-generated."

"We, in taking a look in particular at the issue of Diego Garcia, asked ourselves a few questions and as a result generated this search," he said.

Gordon Johndroe, National Security Council spokesman for President Bush, said the incident was "unfortunate" but will not damage U.S.-British cooperation.

"Mistakes were made in the reporting of the information," he said. "But we will continue to have a good counterterrorism cooperation between the United States and United Kingdom."

Abu Laith al-Libi

2008-02-19T08:32:00.003-05:00

Dell L. Dailey
The airstrike that killed the al-Qaida commander was carried out entirely by the U.S. agency without any approval from the Pakistani government. Officials said they often get their best results from such operations, where they act alone based on information from well-paid informants ("all it takes is bags of cash," said one official). After the successful strike against Libi, officials expect support for autonomous operations will grow in Washington, and, if there's a struggle for power after the elections it could mean Pakistan's leaders would be too worried about other matters to interfere. here

Rodriguez had no authority to destroy tapes

2008-01-17T08:50:00.000-05:00

Rizzo testifies in closed session
Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, said Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., head of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service at the time, had not “gotten authority from anyone” to destroy the tapes. “Matter of fact, it appears that he got direction to make sure the tapes were not destroyed,” he said.

Mr. Hoekstra spoke after hearing testimony from John A. Rizzo, the C.I.A.’s top lawyer, who addressed the committee on Wednesday during a closed session lasting nearly four hours. Mr. Hoekstra did not provide details, including who may have told Mr. Rodriguez not to destroy the tapes. The lawmaker said it was important to have Mr. Rodriguez testify before the committee to get his version of events.

A lawyer for Mr. Rodriguez, Robert S. Bennett, challenged Mr. Hoekstra’s comments about what agency officials told his client. “Nobody, to our knowledge, ever instructed him not to destroy the tapes,” Mr. Bennett said. “Had the director or deputy director or general counsel told him not to destroy the tapes, they would not have been destroyed.” here

Justice Department opens criminal CIA investigation

2008-01-02T15:07:00.000-05:00

The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey appointed an outside prosecutor, Deputy U.S. Attorney from the District of Connecticut - John H. Durham to oversee the case.

"The Department's National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation," Mukasey said in a statement released Wednesday.
The Deputy United States Attorney, John H. Durham, assists in the overall supervision and management of the District of Connecticut Office and in the formulation and implementation of major policies and programs.

Rizzo not asked for final approval

2007-12-11T10:40:00.000-05:00

John C. Truong
Lawyers gave written approval in advance to the destruction in 2005 of hundreds of hours of videotapes documenting CIA interrogations. John A. Rizzo, the agency’s top lawyer at the time, was not asked for final approval before the tapes were destroyed, although Mr. Rizzo had been involved in discussions for two years about the tapes. It is unclear what weight an opinion from a lawyer within the clandestine service would have if it were not formally approved by Mr. Rizzo. But the former official said Mr. Rodriguez and others in the clandestine branch believed the legal judgment gave them the blessing to destroy the tapes. Leaders of the clandestine service believed they “didn’t need to ask Rizzo’s permission.” here

CIA detainees taken to Thailand for Interrogation

2007-12-08T09:04:00.000-05:00

2005 Acting General Counsel John A Rizzo

Jose A. Rodriguez, Directorate of Operations

Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan, was taken to Thailand for part of his interrogation. Several former intelligence officials also said there was great concern that the tapes, which recorded hours of grueling interrogations, could have set off controversies about the legality of the interrogations and generate a backlash in the Middle East. here In February 2005, a federal judge in New York ordered the CIA to comply with the ACLU's request for documents related to the CIA's detainment and interrogation of suspected terrorists. The agency was told to delve into its operations files for any responsive documents to produce for in camera review. If the timing is right, that would put Rizzo, who oversees the litigation division that handles FOIA requests, right in the thick of things.Joe Palazzolo

By mid-2002, the CIA had worked out secret black-site deals with two countries, including Thailand and one Eastern European nation, current and former officials said. An estimated $100 million was tucked inside the classified annex of the first supplemental Afghanistan appropriation.
On March 28, 2002. Pakistani forces took Abu Zubaida, al Qaeda's operations chief, into custody and the CIA whisked him to the new black site in Thailand, which included underground interrogation cells, said several former and current intelligence officials. By Dana Priest, November 2, 2005 here

Mauritania?

2007-07-27T09:38:00.000-04:00

Mauritania denies having secret CIA prison
The General’s Report, By Seymour M. Hersh, 25 June, 2007, The New Yorker

Review this omniscient/lucky blog

Not going to condemn the US

2007-07-26T10:14:00.000-04:00

John Scarlett, MI6

The CIA misled British intelligence chiefs over the arrest and treatment of terrorist suspects who were the subjects of rendition, "Where people are at risk of being tortured we have made very clear about our rejection of such a policy... But I am not going to condemn the US authorities," Prime Minister Gordon Brown said. here

CIA Officers helped Marty

2007-07-17T10:20:00.000-04:00

Dissident U.S. intelligence officers angry at former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped a European probe uncover details of secret CIA prisons in Europe,
Swiss Senator Dick Marty, author of a Council of Europe report on the jails, said. here

ACLU sues Boeing/Jeppesen

2007-07-10T10:08:00.000-04:00

On behalf of 3 detainees

Transferred from black site to Guantánamo

2007-04-28T09:36:00.000-04:00

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi is the first terrorism suspect known to have been held in secret C.I.A. jails since President Bush announced the transfer of 14 captives to Guantánamo Bay last September.
Intelligence officials said that under questioning Mr. Iraqi had provided valuable intelligence about Qaeda hierarchy and operations. It appears he gave up this information after being subjected to standard interrogation methods approved for the Defense Department — not harsher methods that the C.I.A. is awaiting approval to use.
In 2005, Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s second in command, wrote a letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then the top Al Qaeda operative in Iraq, urging him to refrain from killing Shiites. But since then, terrorist experts have said that they see Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as largely independent of the organization hub in Pakistan. here
An intelligence official would not say whether other people have been held since al-Iraqi was handed over to the agency earlier this year. here

No jurisdiction over Aero Contractors

2007-04-02T12:06:00.000-04:00

The state attorney general's office says it does not have the jurisdiction to investigate whether a North Carolina company helped the C-I-A take terrorism suspects to countries where they may have been tortured.
Twenty state lawmakers had asked Attorney General Roy Cooper and the SBI to investigate Aero Contractors. But J-B Kelly, Cooper's general counsel, says the F-B-I is the best agency to investigate.

Media outlets have reported that Aero Contractors has close ties with the C-I-A. Company officials have said they do work for the government but have declined to discuss any details.

The company, which provides planes and pilots for charter flights, has leased about eight acres from the Johnston County Airport since 1979. here

Aero Contractors Ltd. take off from Johnston County Airport

2007-02-21T08:41:00.000-05:00

SMITHFIELD, N.C. - The airplanes of Aero Contractors Ltd. take off from Johnston County Airport here, then disappear over the scrub pines and fields of tobacco and sweet potatoes. Nothing about the sleepy Southern setting hints of foreign intrigue. Nothing gives away the fact that Aero's pilots are the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism, routinely sent on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul. here
AeroContractors of Nigeria 737 AeroContractors Ltd. is owned by Schreiner Airways which is owned by CHC Helicopter Corporation of Canada, which is substantially controlled by Discovery Helicopters, controlled by Mark D. Dobbins, a citizen of Ireland and Canada. Schedule 13 (d) Plane is leased from JAT Airways (Jugoslovenski aerotransport) of Serbia.

Pilots traced to CIA renditions

2007-02-20T08:23:00.000-05:00

The Times identifies three fliers facing kidnapping charges in Germany related to a 2003 counter-terrorism mission. here

Youtube CNN ; CNN
Kirk James Bird

Chicogo Tribune queries Mazury-Szczytno rendition

2007-02-06T09:38:00.000-05:00

The Chicago Tribune has an inquiry into Mazury-Szczytno International Airport, a former military facility that happens to be near a Polish intelligence training complex where European investigators suspect the CIA maintained a secret interrogation and detention facility.
A Gulfstream V with tail number N379P, took off from Washington's Dulles International Airport on July 27, 2003, and flew to Frankfurt, Germany. FAA records next show the plane taking off from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on July 31, bound for Glasgow, Scotland, and then back to Dulles.

How did the Gulfstream get from Frankfurt to Tashkent, and where did it stop during the four days in between?

The partial answer is Szymany, where Polish aviation records indicate it landed at 2:58 a.m. on July 30 after a flight from Afghanistan.

A more complete flight record is available for a Boeing 737 with tail number N313P. It flew from Tashkent to Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sept. 21, 2003, and then to Szymany on Sept. 22, landing at 9 p.m. It stayed on the ground for 57 minutes before taking off for Baneasa Airport in Bucharest, Romania, an airport that, according to the Marty report, "bears all the characteristics of a detainee transfer or drop-off point."

It then continued on to Rabat, Morocco, and Guantanamo Bay, the report said.

The registered owners of both planes appear to be CIA front companies. Previous attempts by the Tribune to contact the owners produced a trail of non-existent people at unlikely addresses, or law firms that did not want to discuss the nature of their interest in aviation. Both planes have been involved in rendition cases documented by the Tribune, other media and EU investigators.

Another Gulfstream, this one registered to an upstate New York charter company called International Group LLC, flew on Dec. 3, 2002, from Dulles to Anchorage; the next day it flew from Anchorage to Kansai, Japan, according to FAA logs. The log for the following day, Dec. 5, is blank. But on Dec. 6, the plane flew from London's Luton Airport back to Dulles.

Records provided by Jurczenko indicate that the Gulfstream was in Szymany on Dec. 5.

International Group LLC is an established charter company, charging customers $5,600 an hour to fly them to such places as Las Vegas, Hawaii and Bora-Bora in the South Pacific.

"We've moved some pretty high-profile people, including some former U.S. presidents," said Steve Marchionda, International Group's owner.

Marchionda acknowledged that his company's plane landed at Szymany but said the probable reason was to take on fuel. He said the plane had no passengers on board when it arrived at Szymany or when it left.

He also said the plane was never in Afghanistan but rather somewhere "well south of there." He said the company's privacy policy prevented him from saying who had chartered the plane during that time but insisted it wasn't the CIA.

The CIA sometimes uses front companies to charter aircraft from commercial or private owners. A Gulfstream registered to Phillip Morse, a partner in the Boston Red Sox, was used in one rendition that has resulted in the indictment of 25 current and former CIA operatives by an Italian prosecutor.

Przewlocka, the former airport manager, said that when the mystery planes would land at Szymany, they usually were greeted by two military vans with shaded windows. She said the vehicles had government license plates that local people associated with the intelligence base at Stare Kiejkuty.

She recalled that on one occasion, an ambulance came with the vans. On another occasion, a landing was attended by "a lady who said she represented the American Embassy," Przewlocka said.

"She stood in front of the building and stared at the aircraft. When the two vans went past her on the way out, she turned aside. It was like she didn't want to see them," she said.
here

Haynes asks for his nomination to be withdrawn

2007-01-09T20:54:00.000-05:00

William J. Haynes II , who was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit based in Richmond, has asked for his name to be withdrawn. He has been the Pentagon’s general counsel and was deeply involved in setting the Bush administration’s interrogation and detention policies. Mr. Haynes wrote or supervised memorandums that secretly authorized harsh treatment for detainees in Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

"alien unlawful combatants" law "sweeping and ill- conceived"

2006-12-14T09:30:00.000-05:00

Even though the president acknowledged that he had sent prisoners to secret “black sites” for interrogation, Congress passed legislation decreasing Congressional and judicial oversight of detainees. When Bush admitted, in short, that the second narrative — America tortures people in secret — was true, Congress effectively made it legal. It strips the courts of jurisdiction to hear whole classes of cases and denies “alien unlawful combatants” (a classification left to Bush to define) the power to assert Geneva Conventions claims in courts. here Incoming panel chairman Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said he will work to revise the law Congress passed at the end of the legislative session to provide for CIA detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects. The measure, which Leahy called ``sweeping and ill- conceived,'' bars federal courts from considering habeas-corpus petitions filed by terrorism suspects challenging their detention. here

Norwegian official warned Kurd he was CIA target

2006-12-04T09:31:00.000-05:00

CIA target Krekar
Islamic militant living in Oslo known as Mullah Krekar, a Kurd, received a warning in 2003 from an anonymous Norwegian official that he was a CIA target and should watch his back. The CIA spies left Norway by the end of the summer, according to records of their travels compiled by European investigators. here

PCLOB won't look outside borders

2006-11-29T15:27:00.000-05:00

The five members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, created at Congress’s direction in 2004 to examine privacy issues related to the war on terror were briefed for nearly two hours at the Treasury Department. The board received a similar classified briefing last week on the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program. Any final report produced by the board would be vetted by the White House and would not examine issues related to civil liberties outside American borders. here Board

Presidential Directive on Detention Facilities

2006-11-24T16:21:00.000-05:00

President Bush signed a directive granting the CIA the authority to set up detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees. The CIA said it will withhold the document and file a new declaration explaining its legal basis for doing so. That declaration is expected before November 30. here Sen. Leahy, Judiciary Comm. chairman in the next Senate has sent a letter to the Justice Department requesting a copy. here

Ghost Plane

2006-10-18T09:05:00.000-04:00

Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (Hardcover)
by Stephen Grey TIME NEWSWEEK

not rendition. If a rendition, not responsible.

2006-09-20T08:57:00.000-04:00

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he had not read the report on a software engineer exonerated of involvement in terrorism, but said, "We were not responsible for his removal to Syria,” adding, “I’m not aware that he was tortured." here The CIA had no comment. Gonzales said Arar's removal was a deportation and not rendition. "Even if it were a rendition, we understand as a government what our obligations are with respect to anyone who is rendered by this government to another country," he said. "[I]f in fact he had been rendered to Syria, we would have sought those same kind of assurances, as we do in every case." The engineer, Maher Arar, challenged that assertion. "I don't think they are being truthful about this," he said. here
In his case, he said, a "special removal unit" transported him to Syria via Jordan on what he believes to have been a CIA plane. "They rendered me to a country that they consider sponsors terrorism and that has a legacy of torture," he said.

Judge Advocates General "clarify"

2006-09-16T09:19:00.000-04:00

Nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit "None of us would have signed anything if we had not believed it and absolutely agreed with it," Col. Ronald M. Reed, counsel to the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, said yesterday. "The discussion was nothing out of the ordinary." WP NYT Letter From the Judge Advocates General The letter's proponant, William J. Haynes II, the top civilian lawyer at the Pentagon, has been nominated to the Court of Appeals.

Senior People should be liable for wrongdoing

2006-09-11T09:17:00.001-04:00

CIA counterterrorism officers have signed up in growing numbers for a government-reimbursed, private insurance plan that would pay their civil judgments and legal expenses if they are sued or charged with criminal wrongdoing.
Former CIA general counsel, Jeffrey H. Smith: More senior people should now be liable, instead of "the officers who carried it out."

"People are worried about a pendulum swing" that could lead to accusations of wrongdoing, said another former CIA officer. In December 2001, with congressional authorization, the CIA expanded the reimbursements to 100 percent for CIA counterterrorism officers. That was about the time J. Cofer Black, then the CIA's counterterrorism chief, told Bush that "the gloves come off" and promised "heads on spikes" in the counterterrorism effort. here

Suspects whose whereabouts are still unknown

2006-09-08T10:38:00.000-04:00

Human Rights Watch, in response to a request from The New York Times, provided a list of 14 men, other than those rendered on Labor Day, who the organization believes have been secretly detained since the Sept. 11 attacks and whose whereabouts are still unknown. HRW NYT Shackled and hooded, 14 men in secret CIA custody were gathered one by one from locations across the world last weekend and flown to a rallying point to await one more flight. For some of the prisoners, it was their third or fourth journey to yet another unknown destination since President Bush approved a covert plan for them to disappear into CIA facilities hidden throughout Eastern Europe and Asia.
On Sunday night, the men -- three Pakistanis, two Yemenis, two Saudis, two Malaysians, a Palestinian, a Libyan, a Somali, an Indonesian and a Tanzanian -- were sedated and placed together onto a flight to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They arrived Labor Day morning, an unusually quiet time at the Pentagon-run facility.

The Hamdan decision did not mean that the sites could not exist; it just meant that the CIA could no longer handle suspects outside the boundaries of the Geneva Conventions, according to the Administration. President Bush:"The current transfers mean that there are now no terrorists in the CIA program. But as more high-ranking terrorists are captured, the need to obtain intelligence from them will remain critical. And having a CIA program for questioning terrorists will continue to be crucial to getting life-saving information." here

Suspect transfer suspends CIA prison program

2006-09-07T10:23:00.000-04:00

A senior intelligence official said there had been fewer than 100 detainees in the C.I.A. program since its inception shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Beyond the 14 suspects moved, the remainder have either been turned over to the Defense Department as so-called unlawful enemy combatants, returned to their countries of origin or sent to nations that have legal proceedings against them. But, he said, "Some of these people have been held for a considerable period of time, and their intelligence value has aged off."
The transfer of suspects to Guantánamo Bay effectively suspended the extraordinary program, in which the intelligence agency became the jailer and interrogator of suspects counterterrorism officials considered the world’s most wanted Islamic extremists. here
CIA officials have worried about being accused of making detainees permanently disappear. here

Uighurs in military plane, shackled to floor bolts

2006-08-16T16:51:00.000-04:00

The five men were Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) captured in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. They had traveled there from their homeland in the Xinjiang province of China, where the Uighur people, most of whom are Muslims, have fought a low-level insurgency against Beijing’s rule for years.
This month, they boarded military plane, where they were shackled to bolts in the floor and surrounded by more than 20 armed soldiers. The five men landed in Tirana, Albania’s capital and largest city and were freed.
Canada has a thriving Uighur community, largely in Toronto. Mr. Qassim said his people had always admired the United States and had hoped that one day America would rally to the Uighurs’ cause for freedom. "We still believe the U.S. is a good country with good people, " he said. "But the government has made a mistake and is still making it." here

Sismi refuses Nasr snatch 'state secrets'

2006-08-07T07:37:00.000-04:00

Italy’s Sismi military intelligence agency has refused to cooperate with magistrates investigating a possible Italian role in the kidnapping of cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, citing "state secrets."One senior Sismi official under investigation, Marco Mancini, has said that the CIA asked Italy to help kidnap Nasr, but it refused because it would be illegal. here

Detainees "in secret places for months and years"

2006-07-28T09:03:00.000-04:00

U.N. Human Rights Committee says it has "credible and uncontested" information that the United States had detained people "secretly and in secret places for months and years." here Washington responded that the covenant [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights] only applies in the national territory of signatories and does not apply to the U.S. military or its installations abroad, which are governed by other domestic and international laws. here

Aware of everything that goes on at the base

2006-06-20T11:13:00.000-04:00

Karen Hughes, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs: the many things that Morocco is doing that we see as a model for the Arab and wider Islamic communities throughout the world. here Morocco and my country also have a very special partnership. here Morocco entered into the bilateral free trade pact. here , Ain el Aouda
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan denied that the Incirlik airbase in the southern Turkish province of Adana had been used by the US as a transit point for persons held by the CIA without the knowledge of Ankara. “Incirlik is a Turkish Armed Force base. Our officials are aware of everything that goes on at the base,” he said.

Uighur men at Guantanamo flown to Albania

2006-06-15T08:51:00.000-04:00

East Turkistan exile government Five Chinese Uighur men who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay have been flown to Albania. The five Uighurs were apparently swept up by bounty hunters in Pakistan and delivered to U.S. forces. The Uighurs are a Turkic, Muslim people numbering some 8 million but their state, East Turkistan, was subsumed by China. "Their future is not here," said Argita Totozani, the national commissioner for refugees. here here here

Rendition now leads to CIA secret detention

2006-06-07T08:46:00.000-04:00

When it takes terrorist suspects into its custody, the CIA no longer uses rendition to transport them into the custody of countries where they are wanted. Instead, for the high-level suspects at least, rendition now leads to secret detention at the CIA’s socalled “black sites” in unspecified locations around the world. Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states
Draft report – Part II (Explanatory memorandum),Rapporteur: Mr Dick Marty, Switzerland, ALDE, 7 June 2006 here plus logistics plus chaos plus collusion plus secret

Nothing the Bulgarian officials are not aware of

2006-05-30T11:55:00.000-04:00

Bulgaria approved an agreement allowing the United States to establish three military bases in the former Soviet satellite. The 10-year deal gives U.S. troops access to the Graf Ignatievo airfield in central Bulgaria and, close to the border with Turkey, the Bezmer airfield. Rights groups have expressed concern the U.S. CIA used similar sites in neighboring Romania as secret jails.
Washington Post"Nothing is going to happen on Bulgarian soil with respect to American forces that the Bulgarian officials are not aware of," U.S. Ambassador John Beyrle said.
Dana Priest: I believe the Eastern European sites were closed and moved elsewhere. I'm not entirely certain where.

AI 2006 Report: evidence of CIA rendition flights

2006-05-23T10:17:00.000-04:00

"The United States outsources torture to countries like Morocco, Jordan and Syria," claims secretary general Irene Khan Amnesty International 2006: "...further evidence emerged that the US authorities “outsourced” torture by means including “rendition” — the transfer of individuals to another country without any form of judicial or administrative process, sometimes in secret."- Azerbaijan has denied participation in the alleged U.S. Central inteligence Agency's program of secret prisons and rendition flights of terrorist suspects. Samed Seyidov said that Azerbaijan's official response about the alleged existence of CIA secret prisons on its territory has been presented to the Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis. see UPI plus free plus eyes plus take

Europe: U.S. may not exchange information

2006-05-08T08:24:00.000-04:00

"There have been very few cases of renditions," he told reporters, using the term for turning suspects over to other countries. ". . . The suggestion that there has been a large number of flights is simply an absurd allegation."

Asked whether the renditions were continuing, State's John Bellinger said: "The last allegation of rendition was something like three years ago."

"This furor over renditions, and the furor over the flights alone, and the suggestion that flights alone are somehow improper . . . already is undermining intelligence cooperation," Bellinger said. "Next time, the U.S. may be reluctant to bring people to Europe or exchange information," he added. See Cleveland Plain Dealer plus invasion plus blasted plus flaming

el- Masri: maximum transparency and openness

2006-05-02T08:39:00.000-04:00

Khaled el- Masri, a German car mechanic born in Lebanon, charges that he was drugged and flown from Macedonia to Kabul. Interior minister, Ljubomir Mihajilovski, said, "We had a good discussion, and we hope it will finally be clarified that there was not such a case in which Macedonian security services were involved." He added, "There are no indications that foreign intelligence services, and particularly the CIA, were involved" in a kidnapping. Siljan Avramovski, the former head of Macedonia's counterintelligence service, the UBK, said, "We will provide maximum transparency and openness in our discussions." see IHT plus Khaled plus el-Masri plus story

Not privy to details of cooperation on CIA renditions

2006-04-21T12:58:00.000-04:00

Gijs de Vries, the European Union's antiterrorism coordinator, said that investigations have not turned up any proof of secret renditions of terror suspects on EU territory,no EU-US agreement authorized secret renditions of terror suspects, that hundreds of CIA flights did not occur over Europe as reported by various media organizations, and that he has no news of European countries using intelligence obtained under torture.
''I am not privy to details of cooperation between national services, whether inside the EU or with third partners. That is under full control of national parliaments," de Vries said.
See Boston Globe

Italy not forwarding CIA agent arrest warrents to US

2006-04-13T08:58:00.000-04:00

Italy's Justice Minister Roberto Castelli has refused to pass on to the United States a request to extradite 22 purported CIA agents.
The agents are accused of helping to abduct Muslim cleric Osama Mustafa Hassan, without Italian permission, in Milan in 2003. The cleric, also known as Abu Omar, was flown to Egypt for interrogation. An Italian court had issued Europe-wide arrest warrants for the suspects, who are thought to have returned to the US. Mr Castelli signed the warrants but has now told Milan prosecutors that he had decided against forwarding their extradition request to Washington. He had previously accused one of the prosecutors involved of being a leftist militant and anti-American. here
plus Italy plus slumber

NELO contracts for identified CIA rendition planes

2006-04-05T08:55:00.000-04:00

Private companies with current permits to land in US military bases worldwide

Contracts for identified rendition planes have been issued through an obscure US Navy office, rather than the CIA, according to US Department of Defense (DoD) documents obtained by Associated Press (AP).(54) In September 2005, AP reported that the Navy Engineering Logistics Office (NELO)(55) had issued classified contracts with 10 different companies and 33 planes for the "occasional airlift of USN (Navy) cargo worldwide." See Amnesty International

Diego Garcia is a location for detainees,again said

2006-03-30T07:56:00.000-05:00

The US military has used the island base as a hub for the "war on terror" and is reported to have taken "high value" suspects there for interrogation. Independent "We had heard earlier that they were brought to Diego Garcia but that's such a remote place that it probably would have served only for initial debriefing." BBC, Forbes

Secret detention: new practice: held in “black sites”

2006-03-28T08:55:00.000-05:00

Unlike extraordinary rendition, secret detention does not have clear predecessors in U.S. intelligence history. Instead, it appears to be a new practice for the U.S., in which individuals are held in “black sites” run entirely off the radar of normal civilian or military procedures. Such detentions are not monitored by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and they apparently involve transfers of prisoners from site to site to evade detection. Thus far, no one has argued that unacknowledged incommunicado detention by U.S. agents was authorized by presidents of a bygone era, or that the practice has long been an essential tool in the fight against terrorism. This is not surprising – clear norms exist to proscribe secret detentions under international human rights law. In the European, Inter-American, and United Nations human rights systems, a deep jurisprudence has developed against this practice – based on the lessons of Latin America’s “dirty war” – a practice more properly called enforced disappearance.
Margaret Satterthwaite is Assistant Professor of Clinical Law at NYU School of Law and Faculty Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Research.
UPitt

Nobody has seen foreign planes landing for years

2006-03-17T09:08:00.000-05:00

Ukrainian Makarov-11 garrison in Kiev region is not used as a CIA prison, and in July-August 2005 in the Ozernoe airport (Zhitomir, Ukraine) six Gulfstream-type planes did not land. Locals said that the base in Makarov is almost conservated, no movement is seen there. The base is more Russian than Ukrainian as it belongs to the Russian General Staff. The airport is in the middle of the city. Nobody have seen any foreign strange planes landing for the last years, or heavily guarded convoys. Parliamentary committee for defense and national security head
Georgy Kryuchkov said he had received an anonymous letter about secret CIA prisons on Ukrainian territory.
See UPI

The CIA's training facility at Camp Peary, Va.

2006-03-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

Searching aviation databases for flights landing or taking off from the CIA's training facility at Camp Peary, Va. revealed 17 aircraft whose ownership and flight histories could also be traced.

See Chicago Tribune plus prisons plus rendition

Adam Ingram letter: CIA charters landed in '03,'04

2006-03-07T09:40:00.000-05:00

Two aircraft known to have been chartered by the CIA landed 14 times at RAF Northholt, west London, and RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire between October 2003 and May 2004.said Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram.
RAF Brize Norton is Britain's main airbase for waging the war and occupation in Iraq. Most of the British Troops that fly out to Iraq do so from Brize Norton as does much of the supplies.
See London Mirror plus Glasgow plus extraordinary plus admit