As the US Central Intelligence Agency comes under increasing criticism for its controversial renditions programme and alleged network of secret 'black site' prisons, a Khaleej Times review of evidence presented against the CIA reveals emirates airports were used at least 13 times by the spy agency's fleet of aircraft.
Three aircraft publicly linked to the CIA — a Boeing 737, and two Gulfstream executive jets — made multiple take offs and landings from Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports, the evidence shows. All three planes are thought to have been used in the controversial practice of renditions - snatching suspects from one country and transporting them to detention facilities elsewhere...
According to records of approximately 3,000 flights obtained by Amnesty International and the research group TransArms, planes owned or chartered by the CIA and linked to the renditions programme, made stop offs in the UAE. The first plane, a Boeing 737, made a total of 5 stops in the UAE: four in Dubai and one in Abu Dhabi. The plane was first registered by a company called Stevens Express Leasing (SEL), then by Premier Executive Transport Services (PETS) and finally in 2004 by Keeler & Tate Management (KTM).
Amnesty says all three firms are front companies set up by the CIA.
SEL has a mailing address in Tennessee, but no physical office. PETS lists corporate officers who have no addresses other than PO Box numbers near Washington D.C and who apparently have no credit or publicly identifiable personal histories. KTM owns no other planes, no premises and has no website. Nevertheless, both SEL and PETS had, until 2005, licences to land at US military bases worldwide.
The Boeing 737 was used to take Khaled el-Masri from Macedonia to Afghanistan in January 200, where he was held for five months before being dumped in Albania when the U.S. realized it had grabbed the wrong man.
El-Masri, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, is now suing the U.S. government claiming he was not only kidnapped, but tortured as well while in captivity...
Omar was eventually taken by the CIA to Egypt. Vincent Cannistraro told Newsday newspaper in 2003 that an al-Qaeda detainee flown from Guantanamo Bay to Egypt was tortured. "They promptly tore his fingernails out and he started telling things," Cannistraro is quoted as saying...
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2006/May/theuae_May608.xml§ion=theuae
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