More ‘Clues’ on CIA Prisons Reported

A European investigator said Tuesday that he has found mounting indications that the United States illegally held detainees in Europe, then hurriedly shipped out the last ones to North Africa a month ago when word leaked out.

Dick Marty, a Swiss senator looking into claims the CIA operated secret prisons in Europe, said an ongoing, monthlong investigation had unearthed “clues” that detainees were held in Poland and Romania.

Both countries have denied any involvement, and Marty said he believed no prisoners were still being held by the U.S. in Europe.

“To my knowledge, those detainees were moved about a month ago,” he said after briefing the legal committee of the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog. “They were moved to North Africa.”

Asked to which country detainees might have been moved, he said: “I would imagine that it would be Morocco.”

Moroccan government spokesman Nabil Benabdellah denied any link to such prisons when reports of transfers surfaced last week.

The Washington Post first reported the existence of secret prisons in Eastern Europe and other countries Nov. 2. The paper did not name the nations, but New York-based Human Rights Watch said analysis of flight logs of CIA aircraft it obtained indicated that the CIA had transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania.

Marty told the council’s legal committee that information gathered so far “reinforced the credibility of the allegations concerning the transfer and temporary detention of individuals, without any judicial involvement, in European countries.” Marty is expected to present a full report in late January.

The investigator told reporters that he could not offer proof that secret detention centers existed. But he cited two suspected cases of detainees held by U.S. authorities in Europe as signs that suspects were held at least temporarily on the continent.

The cases were the 2003 kidnapping of Egyptian cleric Hassan Osama Nasr, allegedly by the CIA, in Italy; and claims by Khaled Masri, a Lebanese-born German, that the agency took him to Afghanistan and tortured him after mistakenly identifying him as being linked to Al Qaeda. Masri said he was released in Albania in May 2004.

Marty has asked for air traffic logs from European countries as he seeks to trace flight patterns for several dozen suspected CIA airplanes.

The senator also was critical of the United States, saying he “deplores the fact that no information or explanations” were provided by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who faced repeated questions about the CIA prison allegations on her recent visit to Europe.

Rice said the United States acts within the law and argued that Europeans are safer because of tough U.S. tactics, but she refused to discuss intelligence operations or questions about CIA detention centers.