Following theSeptember 11 attacks of 2001 and subsequentwar on terror, the United StatesCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) established a "Detention and Interrogation Program" that included a network of clandestineextrajudicial detention centres, officially known as "black sites", to detain, interrogate, and oftentorture suspectedenemy combatants, usually with the acquiescence, if not direct collaboration, of the host government.[3]
CIA black sites systematically employed torture of civilians in the form of "enhanced interrogation techniques" of detainees, most of whom had been illegallyabducted and forcibly transferred. Known locations included Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania, and Thailand.[4] Black sites were part of a broader American-led global program that included facilities operated by foreign governments—most commonly Syria, Egypt, and Jordan—as well as the U.S.military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which housed those deemed "illegal enemy combatants"[4] undera presidential military order.
The existence and specific locations of black sites were known to only a handful of U.S. officials—in some cases limited to just the U.S. president and senior intelligence officers in the host countries.[4] As early as 2002, varioushuman rightsorganizations and news media reported on secret detention facilities.[5] In November 2005, the American daily newspaperThe Washington Post was the first major publication to reveal a "hidden global internment network" operated by the CIA in cooperation with several foreign governments.[5] The following year, U.S. presidentGeorge W. Bush acknowledged that there had been CIA programs that utilized secret prisons but claimed that detainees were not mistreated or tortured.[6][7] Though the black sites had effectively ended in 2006, theBush Administration never disclosed specific details regarding their location, conditions, and activities.
On February 14, 2007, theEuropean Parliament adopted a report finding that severalEU member states had cooperated with the CIA's extraordinary rendition program and implicatingPoland andRomania in hosting secret CIA-rundetention centers.[3][8] In January 2009, amid growing domestic and international criticism, U.S. presidentBarack Obama formally ended the use of black sites and the detention and torture of terrorism suspects,[9] albeit without repudiating nor ending extraordinary renditions.[10] A 2010 study by theUnited Nations found that since 2001, there had been a "progressive and determined elaboration of a comprehensive and coordinated system of secret detention" involving the U.S. and other governments "in almost all regions of the world".[11] The Open Society Justice Initiative documented as many as 54 foreign governments reportedly participating in CIA secret detention and/or extraordinary rendition operations, with an estimated 136 individuals subjected to these operations following September 11, 2001.[12]
Following a five-year investigation, the U.S.Senate Intelligence Committee published asummary report in 2014 concluding that the CIA had routinely conducted "brutal" and ineffective interrogations of detainees at its black sites and repeatedly misled federal officials and the public about their existence and activities;[13] the CIA responded acknowledging "failings" in the program but denying any intentional misrepresentations.[13]
In 2014, theEuropean Court of Human Rights (ECHR) was the first judicial body in the world to confirm the existence of CIA black sites, finding that Poland had allowed the CIA to detain and torture two suspects on domestic soil.[14] Later that year, the Polish government admitted that it had hosted black sites,[15] and subsequent reports determined that the country was arguably the most important component of the CIA's global detention network.[16] A 2018 ruling by the ECHR likewise found Romania and Lithuania responsible for the torture and abuse of prisoners that occurred in CIA black sites on their territories.[17] The European Court of Human Rights ordered Romania and Lithuania to each pay €100,000 in damages for violating detainees' rights through their participation in CIA black site operations.[18]
President George W. Bush officially acknowledged the existence of black sites in the fall of 2006, and said that many of the detainees were being transferred toGuantanamo Bay.[19][20]
TheInternational Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) prepared a report based on interviews with black site detainees, conducted October 6–11 and December 4–14, 2006, after their transfer to Guantanamo Bay.[21] The report was submitted to Bush administration officials in early 2007.[22] On March 15, 2009,New York Review of Books reported the contents of the ICRC report, which included interviews with detainees, includingAbu Zubaydah,Walid bin Attash andKhalid Shaikh Mohammed.[23][24]
Greystone or GREYSTONE (abbreviation: GST) is the former secret codeword of aSensitive Compartmented Information compartment containing information about rendition, interrogation and counter-terrorism programs of theCIA,[25] operations that began shortly after theSeptember 11 Attacks. It covers covert actions in the Middle East that include pre-military operations inAfghanistan and drone attacks.[26]
The abbreviation GST was first revealed in December 2005, in a Washington Post-article byDana Priest, which says that GST includes programs for capturing suspectedAl-Qaeda terrorists, transporting them with aircraft, maintaining secret prisons in various foreign countries, and for the use of special interrogation methods which are held illegal by many lawyers.[27] In 2009, the GST abbreviation was accidentally confirmed in a declassified document written by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in 2004.[28]
The full codeword was revealed in the 2013 bookDeep State, Inside the Government Secrecy Industry byMarc Ambinder and D.B. Grady. It says that the GREYSTONE compartment contains more than a dozen sub-compartments, which are identified by numbers (shown like GST-001). This makes sure that these sub-programs are only known to those people who are directly involved.[29]
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "CIA black sites" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(August 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
There is little or no stated legal authority for the operation of black sites by the United States or the other countries believed to be involved. In fact, the specifics of the network of black sites remains controversial. TheUnited Nations has begun to intervene in this aspect of black sites.[citation needed] A 2010 United Nations joint study concluded that secret detention violates international human rights and humanitarian law by placing detainees beyond the legal framework and rendering safeguards likehabeas corpus ineffective.[30]
British Prime MinisterTony Blair said that the report "added absolutely nothing new whatever to the information we have".[31][32] Poland and Romania received the most direct accusals, as the report claims the evidence for these sites is "strong". The report cites airports inTimișoara, Romania, andSzymany, Poland, as "detainee transfer/drop-off point[s]". Eight airports outside Europe are also cited.[citation needed]
On May 19, 2006, the United Nations Committee Against Torture (the U.N. body that monitors compliance with the UN Convention Against Torture) recommended that the United States cease holding detainees in secret prisons and stop the practice of rendering prisoners to countries where they are likely to be tortured. The decision was made inGeneva following two days of hearings at which a 26-member U.S. delegation defended the practices.[33][34]
Responding to the allegations about black sites, Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice stated on December 5, 2005, that the U.S. had not violated anycountry's sovereignty in therendition of suspects, and that individuals were never rendered to countries where it was believed that they might be tortured. Some media sources have noted her comments do not exclude the possibility of covert prison sites operated with the knowledge of the "host" nation,[35] or the possibility that promises by such "host" nations that they will refrain from torture may not be genuine.[36] On September 6, 2006, Bush publicly admitted the existence of the secret prisons[20][37] and that many of the detainees held there were being transferred to Guantanamo Bay.[19]
In December 2002,The Washington Post reported that "the capture ofal Qaeda leadersRamzi bin al-Shibh in Pakistan,Omar al-Faruq inIndonesia,Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri inKuwait andMuhammad al Darbi inYemen were all partly the result of information gained during interrogations." ThePost cited "U.S. intelligence and national security officials" in reporting this.[38]
On April 21, 2006,Mary O. McCarthy, a longtime CIA analyst, was fired for allegedly leakingclassified information to aWashington Post reporter,Dana Priest, who was awarded thePulitzer Prize for her revelations concerning the CIA's black sites. Some have speculated that the information allegedly leaked may have included information about the camps.[39] McCarthy's lawyer, however, claimed that McCarthy "did not have access to the information she is accused of leaking".[40]The Washington Post posited that McCarthy "had been probing allegations of criminal mistreatment by the CIA and its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan", and became convinced that "CIA people had lied" in a meeting withUS Senate staff in June 2005.[41]
In a September 29, 2006, speech, Bush stated: "Once captured,Abu Zubaydah,Ramzi bin al-Shibh, andKhalid Sheikh Mohammed were taken into custody of the Central Intelligence Agency. The questioning of these and other suspected terrorists provided information that helped us protect the American people. They helped us break up a cell of Southeast Asian terrorist operatives that had been groomed for attacks inside the United States. They helped us disrupt an al Qaeda operation to developanthrax for terrorist attacks. They helped us stop a planned strike on a U.S. Marine camp inDjibouti, and to prevent a planned attack on the U.S. Consulate inKarachi, and to foil a plot to hijack passenger planes and to fly them intoHeathrow Airport and London'sCanary Wharf."[42]
On July 20, 2007, Bush made an executive order banning torture of captives by intelligence officials.[43]
The list of those thought to be held by the CIA included suspected al-Qaeda membersKhalid Sheikh Mohammed,Riduan Isamuddin,Ramzi bin al-Shibh, andAbu Zubaydah. The total number ofghost detainees is presumed to be at least one hundred, although the precise number cannot be determined because fewer than 10% have been charged or convicted. However, Swiss senatorDick Marty's memorandum on "alleged detention in Council of Europe states" stated that about 100 persons have been kidnapped by the CIA on European territory and subsequentlyrendered to countries where they may have been tortured. This number of 100 persons does not overlap, but adds itself to the U.S.-detained 100 ghost detainees.[44]
A number of the alleged detainees listed above were transferred to the U.S.-runGuantanamo Bay prison in Cuba in the fall of 2006. With this publicly announced act, the United States governmentde facto acknowledged the existence of secret prisons abroad in which these prisoners had been held.
Khalid El-Masri is a German citizen who was detained in Skopje, flown to Afghanistan, interrogated and tortured by the CIA for several months, and then released in remoteAlbania in May 2004 without having been charged with any offense. This was apparently due to a misunderstanding that arose concerning the similarity of the spelling of El-Masri's name with the spelling of suspected terroristKhalid al-Masri. Germany had issued warrants for 13 people suspected to be involved with the abduction but dropped them in September 2007.
On October 9, 2007, theUnited States Supreme Court declined without comment to hear an appeal of El-Masri's civil lawsuit against the United States (El-Masri v. Tenet), letting stand an earlier verdict by a federal district court judge, which was upheld by theU.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Those courts had agreed with the government that the case could not go forward without exposingstate secrets.[45]
The CIA abductedHassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (also known as Abu Omar) inMilan and transferred him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured and abused. Hassan Nasr was released by an Egyptian court—who considered his detention "unfounded"—in February 2007 and has not been indicted for any crime in Italy. Ultimately, 26 Americans (mostly suspected CIA agents) and nine Italians were indicted. On November 4, 2009, an Italian judge convicted (in absentia) 23 of the Americans, including a U.S. Air Force (USAF) colonel. Two of the Italians were also convicted in person.
The defense forAafia Siddiqui, who was tried in New York City, alleged that she was held and tortured in a secret US facility atBagram for several years. She was allegedly detained for five years at Bagram with her children; she was the only female prisoner. She was known to the male detainees as "Prisoner 650." Aafia's case gained notoriety due toYvonne Ridley's allegations in her book,The Grey Lady of Bagram, a ghostly female detainee, who kept prisoners awake "with her haunting sobs and piercing screams". In 2005 male prisoners were so agitated by her plight, Ridley said, that they went onhunger strike for six days. Siddiqui's family maintains that she was abused at Bagram.[46]
The trial began in January 2010 and lasted 14 days, with the jury deliberating for three days before reaching a verdict.[47][48] On February 3, 2010, she was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder, armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and three counts of assault on U.S. officers and employees.[47][48][49] Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years in prison on September 23, 2010, following a hearing in which she testified.[50]
An estimated 50 prisons spanning 28 countries have been used to hold detainees, in addition to at least 25 more prisons in Afghanistan and 20 in Iraq. It is estimated that the U.S. has also used 17 ships as floating prisons since 2001, bringing the total estimated number of prisons operated by the U.S. and/or its allies to house terrorist suspects since 2001 to more than 100.
Fifty-four countries have been identified as having captured, held, questioned, tortured and/or helped transport CIA detainees,[52] including Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Libya, Lithuania, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Zambia.[53]
The first CIA black site in the world was established inThailand shortly after September 11, 2001, and has been described as the "test case" for the "enhanced interrogation techniques" that would become standard throughout the CIA program.[52] Thailand is believed to have been chosen due to itsformal alliance with the U.S. and long history of close military and intelligence cooperation, such as allowing its air bases to be used for U.S. bombing campaigns during the Vietnam War.[54] One such base,Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, was claimed by a senior Thai security official in 2018 to have hosted a black site codenamed "Detention Site Green".[54]
In May 2018, the BBC reported that Detention Site Green was used to interrogate at least three "high-value" detainees, includingAbu Zubaydah, a 31-year-old Saudi-born Palestinian believed to have been one ofOsama bin Laden's top lieutenants, who was transferred to the site in March 2002 with the knowledge and consent of the Thai government.[54] Zubaydah is the first known CIA prisoner in the war on terror to undergo torture.[52] In August 2018, theRoyal Thai Army announced that another suspected Udon Thani black site, the formerRamasun Station, would be turned into a tourist attraction, rejecting widespread suspicions that the station had been used as a black site.[55] TheDon Muang Royal Thai Air Force Base has also been identified as a possible location for a CIA detention facility.
TheU.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) alleges that at least eight Thai senior officials knew of the secret site, but that some members of the Thai government had resisted the CIA and nearly forced the facility to close.[54] In 2005, following revelations about the CIA's global detention program by theWashington Post, Thai media alleged that the remoteVoice of Americarelay station inUdon Thani Province was the location of a CIA black site known as "Cat's Eye" or "Detention Site Green".[56] Former Prime MinisterThaksin Shinawatra denied such reports,[57][58][59][60] and it remains unclear whether he knew of the site beforehand.[52] Thailand has continued denying the existence of a black site and has never commissioned an investigation into the Thai officials or agencies involved in the CIA's covert detentions in the country.[52][61]
Owing to concerns that the black site's location had been leaked to U.S. media and was already known by too many Thai officials, the CIA closed its detention facility in December 2002,[62] although unlawful detentions continued in the country at least until 2004.[52] A total of ten CIA prisoners were arrested or held on Thai soil before being transferred without due process to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or to other countries, according to a 2013 report by the Open Society Justice Initiative.
In Afghanistan, the prison atBagram Air Base was initially housed in an abandoned brickmaking factory outsideKabul known as the "Salt Pit",[63] but later moved to the base sometime after a young Afghan died of hypothermia after being stripped naked and left chained to a floor. During this period, there were several incidents oftorture and prisoner abuse, though they were related to non-secret prisoners, and not the CIA-operated portion of the prison. At some point prior to 2005, the prison was again relocated, this time to an unknown site. Metal containers at Bagram Air Base were reported to be black sites.[64] Some Guantanamo Bay detainees report being tortured in a prison they called "the dark prison", also near Kabul.[65] Also in Afghanistan,Jalalabad andAsadabad have been reported as suspected sites.[66]
InIraq,Abu Ghraib was disclosed as a black site, and in 2004 was the center of anextensive prisoner abuse scandal.[67] Additionally,Camp Bucca (nearUmm Qasr) andCamp Cropper (near theBaghdad International Airport) were reported.
TheUAE runssecret prisons inYemen where prisoners are forcibly disappeared and tortured.[68][69][70][71][72][73] A Geneva-based human rights group, SAM for Rights and Liberties called on the Emirati forces to close all its secret prisons being operated in Yemen. The group claimed that these secret detention facilities intentionally held prisoners, including political opponents, civilians, opinion-makers. In its 26 December 2020 video statement SAM cited one of its reports citing that theSaudi andUAE forces subjected the Yemeni detainees to "cruel forms of torture."[74][75][76]
Mwatana for Human Rights reported on 11 April 2021 about the continued forceful detention of approximately 27 civilians at the Al Munawara Central Prison, Mukalla City,Yemen by UAE authorities. Of the 27 detainees, 13 had been granted acquittal, 11 completed their full terms, and the cases of the remaining 3 were nullified by the court. The detainees have been imprisoned for more than a year despite the Hadhramout Specialized Criminal Court granting their release. As per the former detainees, survivors, and witnesses, Emirati forces operating in Yemen run illegal detention centers in the south of the country. Mwatana has also verified the torture of detainees at these Emirati-run secret detention centers where some have gone as far as committing suicide to protest against their unfair detention, as cited by one of the victim's brothers.[77]
Some reported sites in Egypt,Libya and Morocco,[78][79] as well asDjibouti.[80] TheTemara interrogation centre, 8 kilometres (5 mi) outside the Moroccan capital,Rabat, is cited as one such site.[81]
On January 23, 2009,The Guardian reported that the CIA ran a secret detention center inCamp Lemonnier in Djibouti, a formerFrench Foreign Legion base.[82]
The U.S. Naval Base inDiego Garcia was reported to be a black site, but UK and U.S. officials initially attempted to suppress these reports.[83][84] However, it has since been revealed byTime magazine and a "senior American official" source that the isle was indeed used by the U.S. as a secret prison for "war on terror" detainees. In 2015,U.S. Secretary of StateColin Powell's former chief of staff,Lawrence Wilkerson, elaborated saying Diego Garcia was used by theCIA for "nefarious activities". He said that he had heard from three U.S. intelligence sources that Diego Garcia was used as "a transit site where people were temporarily housed, let us say, and interrogated from time to time" and that "What I heard was more along the lines of using it as a transit location when perhaps other places were full or other places were deemed too dangerous or insecure, or unavailable at the moment".[85][86]
While the revelation was expected to cause considerable embarrassment for both governments, UK officials were expected to face considerable exposure since they had previously quelled public outcry over U.S. detainee abuse by falsely reassuring the public no U.S. detainment camps were housed on any UK bases or territories. The UK may also face liabilities over apparent violations of international treaties.[87] On 21 February 2008, British Foreign SecretaryDavid Miliband admitted that two United States extraordinary rendition flights refuelled on Diego Garcia in 2002, and was "very sorry" that earlier denials were having to be corrected.[88]
Several European countries (particularly the formerSoviet satellites and republics) have been accused of and have denied hosting black sites:Armenia,Azerbaijan,Bulgaria,Czechia,Georgia,Hungary,Kazakhstan,Lithuania,Poland andRomania.[89] Slovak ministry spokesmanRichard Fides said the country had no black sites, but its intelligence service spokesmanVladimir Simko said he would not disclose any information about possible Slovak black sites to the media.[citation needed]EUJustice commissionerFranco Frattini has repeatedly asserted suspension of voting rights for any member state found to have hosted a CIA black site.[citation needed]
The interior minister of Romania,Vasile Blaga, has assured the EU that theMihail Kogălniceanu Airport was used only as a supply point for equipment, and never for detention, though there have been reports to the contrary. A fax intercepted by theOnyx Swiss interception system, from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to its London embassy, stated that 23 prisoners were clandestinely interrogated by the U.S. at the base.[90][91][92] In 2007, it was disclosed byDick Marty (investigator) that the CIA allegedly had secret prisons in Poland and Romania.[93] On April 22, 2015,Ion Iliescu, formerpresident of Romania, confirmed that he had granted a CIA request for a site in Romania, but was not aware of the nature of the site, describing it as a small gesture of goodwill to an ally in advance of Romania's eventual accession to NATO. Iliescu further stated that had he known of the intended use of the site, he would certainly not have approved the request.[94] In an interview given toAP, former presidential security adviserIoan Talpeș further confirmed that confidential arrangements existed which gave the CIA the right to use theMihail Kogălniceanu Air Base as needed, and rights for CIA aircraft to land at Romanian airports. In Dick Marty's report, it was concluded that between 2002 and 2005 the sites in Romania and Poland heldTaliban leaders, al-Qaeda operatives, and other "high-value detainees".[95]
There are other reported sites inUkraine,[89] who denied hosting any such sites,[96] andNorth Macedonia.[89]
In June 2008, aNew York Times article claimed, citing unnamed CIA officers, thatKhalid Sheikh Mohammed was held in a secret facility in Poland nearSzymany Airport, about 160 km (100 mi) north ofWarsaw and it was there where he was interrogated and the waterboarding was applied. It is claimed that waterboarding was used about 100 times over a period of two weeks before Khalid Sheikh Mohammed began to cooperate.[97] In September 2008, two anonymous Polish intelligence officers made the claims about facilities being located in Poland in the Polish daily newspaperDziennik. One of them stated that between 2002 and 2005 the CIA held terror suspects inside a military intelligence trainingbase in Stare Kiejkuty in north-eastern Poland. The officer said only the CIA had access to the isolated zone, which was used because it was a secure site far from major towns and was close to a former military airport. Both Prime MinisterLeszek Miller and PresidentAleksander Kwaśniewski knew about the base, the newspaper reported. However, the officer said it was unlikely either man knew if the prisoners were being tortured because the Poles had no control over the Americans' activities.[98] On January 23, 2009,The Guardian reported that the CIA had run black sites atSzymany Airport in Poland,Camp Eagle inBosnia andCamp Bondsteel inKosovo.[82] The United States has refused to cooperate with a Polish investigation into the matter, according to the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.[99]
In November 2009, reports alleged a black site referred to inThe Washington Post's2005 article had been located inLithuania. A former riding school inAntaviliai, a village some 25 kilometres (16 mi) fromVilnius, was said to have been converted into a jail by the CIA in 2004.[100] The allegations resulted in a parliamentary inquiry, andLithuanian PresidentDalia Grybauskaitė stated that she had "indirect suspicions" about a black site in her country.[101] On December 22, 2009, the parliamentary commission finished its investigation and stated they found no proof that a black site had existed in Lithuania. Valdas Adamkus, a former president of Lithuania, said he is certain that no alleged terrorists were ever detained on Lithuanian territory.[102] However, in a file submitted in September 2015 to the European Court of Human Rights, a lawyer for a Saudi-born Guantanamo detainee said theSenate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture released in December 2014 leaves "no plausible room for doubt" that Lithuania was somehow involved in the Central Intelligence Agency programme.[103] In January 2022, it was reported in a Washington Post article that a former black site has been put up for sale by the Lithuanian government. The former riding stable outside of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius consists of long corridors leading to windowless and soundproof rooms where "one could do whatever one wanted," said current Lithuanian Defense MinisterArvydas Anušauskas, who led a parliamentary investigation into the facility in 2010.[104]
After the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, thepresident of Poland between 1995 and 2005,Aleksander Kwaśniewski, admitted that he had agreed to host a secret CIA black site in Poland, but that activities were to be carried out in accordance to Polish law. He said that a U.S. draft memorandum had stated that "people held in Poland are to be treated as prisoners of war and will be afforded all the rights they are entitled to", but due to time constraints the U.S. had not signed the memorandum.[105]
| This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "CIA black sites" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(August 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
The Washington Post on December 26, 2002, reported about a secret CIA prison in one corner ofBagram Air Force Base (Afghanistan) consisting of metal shipping containers.[3] On March 14, 2004,The Guardian reported that three British citizens were held captive in a secret section (Camp Echo) of the Guantánamo Bay complex.[115] Several other articles reported the retention of ghost detainees by the CIA, alongside the other official "enemy combatants". However, it was the revelations ofThe Washington Post, in a November 2, 2005, article, that would start the scandal. (below)[116]
A report by thehuman rights organizationHuman Rights Watch, entitled "Enduring Freedom – Abuses by US Forces in Afghanistan", states that the CIA has operated in Afghanistan since September 2001;[117] maintaining a large facility in the Ariana Chowk neighborhood ofKabul and a detention and interrogation facility at theBagram airbase.
In the February 26 – March 4, 2005, edition of Ireland'sVillage magazine, an article titled "Abductions via Shannon" claimed that Dublin and Shannon airports in Ireland were "used by the CIA to abduct suspects in its 'war on terror'". The article went on to state that aBoeing 737 (registration number N313P, later reregisteredN4476S) "was routed through Shannon and Dublin on fourteen occasions from January 1, 2003 to the end of 2004. This is according to the flight log of the aircraft obtained from Washington, D.C., byVillage. Destinations includedEstonia (1/11/03);Larnaca,Salé,Kabul,Palma,Skopje,Baghdad, (all January 16, 2004);Marka (May 10, 2004 and June 13, 2004). Other flights began in places such asDubai (June 2, 2003 and December 30, 2003), Mitiga (October 29, 2003 and April 27, 2004), Baghdad (2003) and Marka (February 8, 2004, March 4, 2004, May 10, 2004), all of which ended in Washington, D.C.
According to the article, the same aircraft landed in Guantanamo Bay on September 23, 2003, "having travelled from Kabul toSzymany (Poland),Mihail Kogălniceanu (Romania) and Salé (Morocco)". It had been used "in connection with the abduction in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, ofKhalid El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, on 31 December 2003, and his transport to a US detention centre in Afghanistan on 23 January 2004".
In the article, it was noted that the aircraft's registration showed it as being owned byPremier Executive Transport Services, based inMassachusetts, though as of February 2005 it was listed as being owned byKeeler and Tate Management,Reno, Nevada (US). On the day of registration transference, a Gulfstream V jet (Tail No.N8068V) used in the same activities, was transferred from Premier Executive Transport Services to a company calledBaynard Foreign Marketing.[118]
A story by reporterDana Priest published in theWashington Post on November 2, 2005 reported that: "The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important alleged al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement."[119] According to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats, there is a network of foreign prisons that includes or has included sites in several European democracies, Thailand, Afghanistan, and a small portion of the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba—this network has been labeled byAmnesty International as "The Gulag Archipelago", in a clear reference to the novel of the same name by Russian writer and activistAleksandr Solzhenitsyn.[120][121]
The reporting of the secret prisons was heavily criticized by members and former members of theBush Administration. However, Priest states no one in the administration requested that theWashington Post not print the story. Rather they asked they not publish the names of the countries in which the prisons are located.[120] "ThePost has not identified the East European countries involved in the secret program at the request of senior U.S. officials who argued that the disclosure could disruptcounterterrorism efforts".[122]
On November 3, 2005,Tom Malinowski of the New York–basedHuman Rights Watch cited circumstantial evidence pointing to Poland and Romania hosting CIA-operated covert prisons. Flight records obtained by the group documented theBoeing 737 'N4476S' leased by the CIA for transporting prisoners leaving Kabul and making stops in Poland and Romania before continuing on to Morocco, and finally Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.[123][124] Such flight patterns might corroborate the claims of government officials that prisoners are grouped into different classes being deposited in different locations. Malinowski's comments prompted quick denials by both Polish and Romanian government officials as well as sparking the concern of theInternational Committee of the Red Cross ("ICRC"), who called for access to all foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States.
The accusation that several EU members may have allowed the United States to hold, imprison or torture detainees on their soil has been a subject of controversy in the European body, who announced in November 2005 that any country found to be complicit could lose their right to vote in the council.[citation needed]
On November 8, 2005, rights groupAmnesty International provided the first comprehensive testimony from former inmates of the CIA black sites.[125] The report, which documented the cases of threeYemeni nationals, was the first to describe the conditions in black site detention in detail. In a subsequent report, in April 2006, Amnesty International used flight records and other information to locate the black site in Eastern Europe or Central Asia.
On December 28, 2006, the BBC reported that during 2003, a well-known CIAGulfstream V aircraft implicated in extraordinary renditions,N379P, had on several occasions landed at the Polish airbase ofSzymany. The airport manager said that airport officials were told to keep away from the aircraft, which parked at the far end of the runway and frequently kept their engines running. Vans from a nearby intelligence base (Stare Kiejkuty) met the aircraft, stayed for a short while and then drove off. Landing fees were paid in cash, with the invoices made out to "probably fake" American companies.[126]
An August 13, 2007, story byJane Mayer inThe New Yorker reported that the CIA has operated "black site" secret prisons by the direct presidential order of George W. Bush since shortly after 9/11, and that extreme psychological interrogation measures based at least partially on theVietnam-eraPhoenix Program were used on detainees. These included sensory deprivation,sleep deprivation, keeping prisoners naked indefinitely and photographing them naked to degrade and humiliate them, and forcibly administering drugs by suppositories to further break down their dignity. According to Mayer's report, CIA officers have taken outprofessional liability insurance, fearing that they could be criminally prosecuted if what they have already done became public knowledge.[127]
During 2007, the Justice Department were requested to give "copies of ... opinions on interrogation" to the Senate Intelligence Committee and House Judiciary Committee.[128] In a 2007 letter toPeter D. Keisler,John D. Rockefeller IV stated "[he found] it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by The New York Times than by the Department of Justice".[129] On October 5, 2007, President George W. Bush responded, saying "This government does not torture people. You know, we stick to U.S. law and our international obligations." Bush said that the interrogation techniques "have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of Congress".[130]
While speaking to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on October 30, 2007,Michael Hayden said, "Our programs are as lawful as they are valuable." Asked a question aboutwaterboarding, Hayden mentioned attorney general nomineeMichael Mukasey, saying, "Judge Mukasey cannot nor can I answer your question in the abstract. I need to understand the totality of the circumstances in which this question is being posed before I can give you an answer."[131]
On December 6, 2007, the CIA admitted that it had destroyed videotapes recordings of CIA interrogations of terrorism suspects involving harsh interrogation techniques, tapes which critics suggest may have documented the use of torture by the CIA, such as waterboarding. The tapes were made in 2002 as part of a secret detention and interrogation program, and were destroyed in November 2005. The reason cited for the destruction of the tapes was that the tapes posed a security risk for the interrogators shown on the tapes. Yet the department also stated that the tapes "had no more intelligence value and were not relevant to any inquiries".[132] In response, Senate Armed Services Committee ChairmanCarl Levin (D-Michigan) stated: "You'd have to burn every document at the CIA that has the identity of an agent on it under that theory." Other Democrats in Congress also made public statements of outrage about the destruction of the tapes, suggesting that a violation of law had occurred.[133]
After a media and public outcry in Europe concerning headlines about "secret CIA prisons" in Poland and other US allies, the EU through its Committee on Legal Affairs investigated whether any of its members, especially Poland, the Czech Republic or Romania had any of these "secret CIA prisons". After an investigation by the EU Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, the EU determined that it could not find any of these prisons. In fact, they could not prove if they had ever existed at all. To quote the report, "At this stage of the investigations, there is no formal, irrefutable evidence of the existence of secret CIA detention centres in Romania, Poland or any other country. Nevertheless, there are many indications from various sources which must be considered reliable, justifying the continuation of the analytical and investigative work."[134]
Nonetheless, the CIA's alleged programme prompted several official investigations in Europe into the existence of such secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involvingCouncil of Europe member states. AJune 2006 report from the Council of Europe estimated 100 people had been kidnapped by the CIA on EU territory (with the cooperation of Council of Europe members), and rendered to other countries, often after having transited through secret detention centres ("black sites") used by the CIA, some located in Europe. According to the separateEuropean Parliament report of February 2007, the CIA has conducted 1,245 flights, many of them to destinations where suspects could face torture, in violation of article 3 of theUnited Nations Convention Against Torture.[135]
In November 2005,El País reported that CIA planes had landed in theCanary Islands and inPalma de Mallorca. A state prosecutor opened up an investigation concerning these landings which, according toMadrid, were made without official knowledge, thus being a breach ofnational sovereignty.[136][137][138]
The prosecutor ofBobigny court, in France, opened up an investigation in order "to verify the presence inLe Bourget Airport, on July 20, 2005, of the plane numbered N50BH". This instruction was opened following a complaint deposed in December 2005 by theLigue des droits de l'homme (LDH) NGO ("Human Rights League") and theInternational Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) NGO on charges of "arbitrary detention", "crime of torture" and "non-respect of the rights ofwar prisoners". It has as objective to determine if the plane was used to transport CIA prisoners toGuantanamo Bay detainment camp and if the French authorities had knowledge of this stop. However, the lawyer representing the LDH declared that he was surprised that the judicial investigation was only opened on January 20, 2006, and that no verifications had been done before.
On December 2, 2005, conservative newspaperLe Figaro had revealed the existence of two CIA planes that had landed in France, suspected of transporting CIA prisoners. But the instruction concerned only N50BH, which was aGulfstream III, which would have landed at Le Bourget on July 20, 2005, coming fromOslo, Norway. The other suspected aircraft would have landed inBrest on March 31, 2002. It is investigated by the Canadian authorities, as it would have been flying fromSt. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, viaKeflavík inIceland before going to Turkey.[139]
On February 5, 2007, Portuguese general prosecutor Cândida Almeida, head of the Central Investigation and Penal Action Department (DCIAP), announced an investigation of "torture or inhuman and cruel treatment", prompted by allegations of "illegal activities and serious human rights violations" made by MEPAna Gomes to the attorney general, Pinto Monteiro, on January 26, 2007.[140]
Gomes was highly critical of thePortuguese government's reluctance to comply with the European Parliament Commission investigation into the CIA flights, leading to tensions with Foreign MinisterLuís Amado, a member ofher party. She said she had no doubt that illegal flights were frequently permitted during theDurão Barroso (2002–2004) andSantana Lopes (2004–2005) governments, and that "during the [present Socialist] government ofJosé Sócrates, 24 flights which passed through Portuguese territory" are documented.[141] She expressed satisfaction with the opening of the investigation, but emphasized that she had always said a parliamentary inquiry would also be necessary.[140]
Visão magazine journalist Rui Costa Pinto also testified before the DCIAP. He had written an article, rejected by the magazine, about flights passing throughLajes Field in theAzores, a Portuguese airbase used by the U.S. Air Force.[140] Costa Pinto wrote a book about his investigation.[142]
Approximately 150 CIA flights have been identified as having flown through Portugal.[143]
In January 2012, Poland'sProsecutor General's office initiated investigative proceedings againstZbigniew Siemiątkowski, the formerPolish intelligence chief. Siemiątkowski is charged with facilitating the alleged CIA detention operation in Poland, where foreign suspects may have been tortured in the context of the war on terror. The allegedconstitutional andinternational lawtrespasses took place whenLeszek Miller, presently member ofparliament and leader of theDemocratic Left Alliance, was Prime Minister (2001–2004), and he may also be subjected to future legal action (a trial before theState Tribunal of the Republic of Poland).[144][145]
The future robustness of the highly secret investigation, in progress since 2008, may however be in some doubt. According to the leading Polish newspaperGazeta Wyborcza, soon after Siemiątkowski was charged by the prosecutors inWarsaw, the case was transferred and is now expected to be handled by a different prosecutorial team inCracow. The United States authorities have refused to cooperate with the investigation and the turning over of the relevant documents to the prosecution by the unwillingIntelligence Agency was forced only after the statutory intervention of the First President of theSupreme Court of Poland.[146][147]
Abu Zubaydah andAbd al-Rahim al-Nashiri are said to have been held and subjected to physical punishments at theStare Kiejkuty intelligence base in northeastern Poland.[148]
TheEuropean Union (EU) as well as theCouncil of Europe pledged to investigate the allegations. On November 25, 2005, the lead investigator for the Council of Europe, Swiss lawmakerDick Marty announced that he had obtained latitude and longitude coordinates for suspected black sites, and he was planning to use satellite imagery over the last several years as part of his investigation. On November 28, 2005, EU Justice CommissionerFranco Frattini asserted that any EU country which had operated a secret prison would have its voting rights suspended.[149] On December 13, 2005, Marty, investigating illegal CIA activity in Europe on behalf of theCouncil of Europe in Strasbourg, reported evidence that "individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards". His investigation has found that no evidence exists establishing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe, but added that it was "highly unlikely" that European governments were unaware of the American program of renditions. A 2006 Council of Europe investigation by UN rapporteur Dick Marty estimated that approximatelt 100 individuals were abducted by the CIA on European territory and relocated. to countries where they risked torture.[150] However, Marty's interim report, which was based largely on a compendium of press clippings has been harshly criticised by the governments of various EU member states.[151] The preliminary report declared that it was "highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware" of the CIA kidnapping of a "hundred" persons on European territory and their subsequentrendition to countries where they may be tortured.[44]
On April 21, 2006,The New York Times reported that European investigators said they had not been able to find conclusive evidence of the existence of European black sites.[152]
On June 27, 2007, theParliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted on Resolution 1562 and Recommendation 1801 backing the conclusions of the report by Dick Marty. The Assembly declared that it was established with a high degree of probability that secret detention centres had been operated by the CIA under the High Value Detainee (HVD) program for some years in Poland and Romania.[151]
In its edition of January 8, 2006, the Swiss newspaperSonntagsblick published a document intercepted on November 10 by the SwissOnyx interception system (similar to theUKUSA'sECHELON system). Purportedly sent by the Egyptian embassy in London to foreign ministerAhmed Aboul Gheit, the document states that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens were interrogated atMihail Kogălniceanu base nearConstanța, Romania. According to the same document, similar interrogation centers exist in Bulgaria, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, and Ukraine.[89]
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry later explained that the intercepted fax was merely a review of the Romanian press done by the Egyptian Embassy in Bucharest. It probably referred to a statement by controversial Senator andGreater Romania Party leaderCorneliu Vadim Tudor.[153]
The Swiss government did not officially confirm the existence of the report, but started a judiciary procedure for leakage of secret documents against the newspaper on January 9, 2006.
TheEuropean Parliament's report, adopted by a large majority (382MEPs voting in favor, 256 against, and 74 abstaining) passed on February 14, 2007, concludes that many European countries tolerated illegal actions of the CIA including secret flights over their territories. The countries named were: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Although no clear evidence has been found against the United Kingdom.[3] The report:
denounces the lack of cooperation of many member states and theCouncil of the European Union with the investigation; Regrets that European countries have been relinquishing control over their airspace and airports by turning a blind eye or admitting flights operated by the CIA which, on some occasions, were being used for illegal transportation of detainees; Calls for the closure of [the US military detention mission in] Guantanamo and for European countries immediately to seek the return of their citizens and residents who are being held illegally by the US authorities; Considers that all European countries should initiate independent investigations into all stopovers by civilian aircraft [hired by] the CIA; Urges that a ban or system of inspections be introduced for all CIA-operated aircraft known to have been involved in extraordinary rendition.[8][154]
The report criticized several European countries including Austria, Italy, Poland & Portugal for their "unwillingness to cooperate" with investigators and the actions ofsecret services for lack of cooperation with the Parliaments' investigators and refusing to accept the confessions of illegal abductions. The European Parliament voted a resolution condemning member states that accepted or ignored the practice. According to the report, the CIA had operated 1,245 flights, many of them to destinations where suspects could face torture. The Parliament also called for the creation of an independent investigation commission and the closure of Guantanamo. According to Giovanni Fava (Socialist Party), who drafted the document, there was a "strong possibility" that the intelligence obtained under the extraordinary rendition illegal program had been passed on to EU governments who were aware of how it was obtained. The report also uncovered the use of secret detention facilities in Europe, including Romania and Poland. 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".UK officials have further denied any claims and many investing officials agreed that the UK was not involved in the detention and torture or in hosting prisons. The UK might have been a transit state but there is no proof about this either.
On January 22, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order regarding theUnited States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) requiring the CIA to use only the 19 interrogation methods outlined in the United StatesArmy Field Manual "unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance". The order also provided that "The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it presently operates and shall not operate any detention facilities in the future."[82][155]
On March 5, 2009,Bloomberg News reported that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was beginning a one-year inquiry into the CIA's detention program.[156]
In April 2009, CIA directorLeon Panetta announced that the "CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites", in a letter to staff and that "[r]emaining sites would be decommissioned". He also announced that the CIA was no longer allowing outside "contractors" to carry out interrogations and that the CIA no longer employed controversial "harsh interrogation techniques".[157][158][159] Panetta informed his fellow employees that the CIA would only use interrogation techniques authorized in theUS Army interrogation manual, and that any individuals taken into custody by the CIA would only be held briefly, for the time necessary to transfer them to the custody of authorities in their home countries, or the custody of another US agency.
In 2011, the Obama administration admitted that it had been holding a Somali prisoner for two months aboard a U.S. naval ship at sea for interrogation.[160]
On December 9, 2014United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) released a 525-page portion that consisted of key findings and an executive summary of the report calledCommittee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program. The rest of the report remains classified for unpublished reasons.[161][162][163] The 6,000-page report produced 20 key findings; they are, verbatim from the unclassified summary report:[164]
According to the report, at least 26 of the 119 prisoners (22%) held by the CIA were subsequently found by the CIA to have been improperly detained,[164] many having also experienced torture.[165] Of the 119 known detainees, at least 39 were subjected to the CIA enhanced interrogation techniques.[164] In at least six cases, the CIA used torture on suspects before evaluating whether they would be willing to cooperate.[164][166]
On July 24, 2014, theEuropean Court of Human Rights ruled thatPoland violated theEuropean Convention on Human Rights when it cooperated with the US government, allowing the CIA to hold and tortureAbu Zubaydah andAbd al-Rahim al-Nashiri on its territory in 2002–2003. The court ordered the Polish government to pay each of the men 100,000 euros in damages. It also awarded Abu Zubaydah 30,000 euros to cover his costs.[167][168]
On May 31, 2018, the ECHR ruled thatLithuania andRomania also violated the rights of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2003–2005 and in 2005–2006 respectively, and Lithuania and Romania were ordered to pay 100,000 euros in damages each to Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri.[169][170][171]
{{cite news}}:|archive-url= is malformed: timestamp (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
This article incorporatespublic domain material fromCommittee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program(PDF).United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on December 9, 2014. RetrievedDecember 9, 2014.
Media related toBlack sites at Wikimedia Commons| Science | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prisoners | |||||||||
| Prisons |
| ||||||||
| Culture | |||||||||
| Social issues |
| ||||||||
| Organizations |
| ||||||||
| Leaving prison | |||||||||
| Lists | |||||||||
| By country |
| ||||||||
