Blair claims renditon report adds nothing new

British Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed today the Council of Europe report on US rendition flights "added absolutely nothing…

British Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed today the Council of Europe report on US rendition flights "added absolutely nothing new whatever to the information we have".

Mr Blair told the House of Commons "rendition had been the policy of the American government for a long time including under the last administration as well as this administration."

The report found that 14 countries colluded with the CIA by accepting diplomatic assurances from the US that airports were not being used by covert CIA planes for transferring the prisoners.

Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz described the latest accusations as "libellous".

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He said: "These accusations are slanderous ... They are not based on any facts."

A Romanian government spokeswoman said: "The conclusion of the report has a speculative character.Launching such accusations based only on clues is unacceptable."

"We must stress that the author of the report admitted there is no proof to back his statements about Romania. All these elements do not lead to a final proof on the existence of any secret detention facilities in Romania," she said.

A Greek government spokesman said: "All flight movements to and from Greece were done with full and strict respect of the laws, rules and international conventions that govern international flights,"

A Cyprus Foreign Ministry source said: "We were never asked by the United States...all these were technical landings that they informed us about while they were in the air. They had technical reasons to land and there were no suspicions of what kind of flights these were."