EU accused of complicity in CIA flights

CIA officials insist EU governments knew extraordinary renditions were being carried out in Europe.

Reporting back on its fact finding mission to Washington, the European parliament’s CIA committee said US officials provided them with patchy and inconsistent information - but said they did agree on one thing.

“The only point in common from the officials we spoke to was that it was not possible to organise extraordinary rendition such as this without the active complicity of European governments,” said Carlos Coelho MEP, chair of the temporary committee.

“That is what we took away from Washington and this will guide us in our future work.”

Last month the committee concluded that more than 1,000 CIA flights had transited the EU.

MEPs also accuse the CIA of kidnapping people and illegally detaining them on EU soil - but Washington denies any wrongdoing.

“More than one source in the CIA - indeed authoritative sources - told us that between 30 and 50 people have been transported by extraordinary rendition,” parliamentary rapporteur Giovanni Claudio Fava told a Strasbourg press conference.

“I think these sources in the CIA are very significant. Indeed, the president of the US himself called in the editor of the Washington Post and told him not to mention the names of EU countries where this sort of thing was done.”

“The fact it involved direct intervention by the president seems to be a strong indication of the existence of clandestine prisons,” the Italian MEP added.

But Fava acknowledged that senior state department officials declined to discuss individual cases.

John Bellinger, the state department’s senior legal adviser, told MEPs that there had been very few cases of rendition and insisted Washington does not “outsource torture”.

“There have not been thousands of flights. There have been a very few cases of rendition. The suggestion that that there have been large numbers or that this allegedly large number of flights had detainees on them is simply absurd,” Bellinger told a press conference after meeting MEPs in Washington.

The parliamentary inquiry, launched in January with no legal powers, has come under increasing pressure to prove its worth.

Critics say it has attracted little testimony from top-level officials and is failing to hold EU governments to account.

But Coelho insisted the Washington trip had given the committee fresh impetus.

“I cannot conclude what measures we will be taking after this, but I do know that we have to listen to the people we heard from in the US and will make our work more pressing on EU governments.”

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