Published: Nov 19, 2005 12:30 AM
Modified: Nov 19, 2005 05:43 AM
14 held after airport protest Peggy Lim, Staff Writer
Fourteen people were arrested Friday in a protest at Johnston County Airport, where planes used to shuttle terrorism suspects were believed to be based.
About 60 protesters came from as far as St. Louis and Chicago to ask the county to investigate Aero Contractors, which has leased about eight acres from the small airport since 1979.
The company has been accused of housing planes used by the Central Intelligence Agency for covert flights. Those flights allegedly took suspects to countries where they could be aggressively interrogated and possibly tortured.
-Snip-
O'Neill was among the protesters who walked quietly down Aero's long, pine-lined driveway, slipped past a barbed-wire fence and draped the company's sign with a cloth that read, "CIA TORTURE TAXI."The company, whose light-blue hangar and parking lot looked deserted, had shut down Friday. No one was there to greet the protesters at the airport except sheriff's deputies, who handcuffed them and escorted them to jail.
http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/369059.html--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND:
FRIDAY'S PROTEST
A group based in St. Louis, Stop Torture Now, organized the protest. Members of the N.C. Council of Churches and local anti-war groups joined in.
Allyson Caison, 45, a resident of Selma and protest participant, said it was a timely issue to be discussing as lawmakers consider legislation to limit torture. "We need to raise awareness of what's going on in my back yard," she said.
The event was planned to coincide with another protest this weekend at the School of the Americas, a military training school in Fort Benning, Ga., where 15,000 are expected to protest.
The allegations
What was Aero Contractor's alleged role in interrogations involving torture?
Investigations led by European governments and media outlets and testimony from eyewitnesses have revealed that two planes, a Boeing Business Jet and a Gulfstream V executive jet, had made a base at Aero Contractors Ltd. in Smithfield. The planes frequently flew from Johnston County to Dulles International Airport outside Washington.
The planes would then cross the Atlantic to countries such as Sweden, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Spain and then head to other countries, including Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Jordan and Iraq, where harsh tactics were sometimes used to extract information from prisoners, the investigators said.
Some detainees, later released, said interrogators had subjected them to electric shock, malnourishment or other forms of torture.
http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/369059.html
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