22 February 2010
Poland admits role in CIA renditionThe Polish authorities have for the first time admitted their involvement in the CIA's secret programme for the rendition of high-level terrorist suspects from Iraq and Afghanistan, it emerged today.
After years of stonewalling, Warsaw's air control service confirmed that at least six CIA flights had landed at a disused military air base in northern Poland in 2003.
"It is time for the authorities to provide a full accounting of Poland's role in rendition," Adam Bodnar, of the Warsaw-based Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, said.
"These flight records reinforce the troubling findings of official European enquiries and global human rights groups, showing complicity with CIA abuse across Europe."
April 27 2009
New Evidence of Torture Prison in Poland For more than a year now, Warsaw public prosecutor Robert Majewski has been investigating former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller's government on allegations of abuse of office. At issue is whether sovereignty over Polish territory was relinquished, and whether former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and his left-leaning Social Democratic government gave the CIA free reign over sections of the Stare Kiejkuty military base for the agency's extraterritorial torture interrogations.
Majewski has questioned a large number of witnesses who worked in the former government, and this year his team even plans to fly to Guantanamo. "No European country is so sincerely and vigorously investigating former members of the government as is currently the case in Poland," says Wolfgang Kaleck from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin, which supports the investigations.
The public prosecutor's office has also launched a probe to determine whether the Polish intelligence agency made 20 of its agents available to the CIA, as was recently reported by the conservative Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita. A former CIA official confirmed this information to SPIEGEL. There was reportedly a document issued by the intelligence agency that mentioned both the 20 Polish agents and the transfer of the military base to the Americans. Two members of a parliamentary investigative committee in Warsaw had an opportunity to view this document in late 2005, but it has since disappeared.
22 February 2008
EU rebukes Poland and Romania over rendition role"We have not received a reply from Poland and the information from Romania was not considered complete. Frattini sent reminders in January and we're currently awaiting replies," Laitenberger said.
Romania and Poland have firmly denied allegations of running secret CIA prisons or of helping the US in transferring terror suspects to illegal detention facilities"
14 February 2007
EU endorses damning report on CIADuring the course of their investigation, delegations of MEPs travelled to countries including Romania, Poland, the UK, the US and Germany to investigate claims of European involvement in so-called extraordinary renditions.
The governments of Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the UK were criticised for their "unwillingness to co-operate" with investigators.
The report defines extraordinary renditions as instances where "an individual suspected of involvement in terrorism is illegally abducted, arrested and/or transferred into the custody of US officials and/or transported to another country for interrogation which, in the majority of cases involves incommunicado detention and torture".
8 November 2006
MEPs probe Poland rendition claimThe group of MEPs will meet one government minister, airport officials and journalists during their three-day fact-finding mission.
Similar delegations have visited the US, UK, Romania and Macedonia.
Poland was one of two states identified by Human Rights Watch as possibly having secret detention centres.
The Polish government has repeatedly denied the allegations.
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