Former Polish intelligence chief questioned about CIA 'black sites'

PROSECUTORS IN Warsaw have questioned a former intelligence chief about allowing the CIA to operate “black sites” for interrogation and torture on Polish territory.

The investigation into Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, head of the Polish intelligence service (AW) from 2002-2004, will shed light on co-operation between the CIA and AW during the Bush administration’s so-called “war on terror” – denied by Warsaw and Washington at the time.

According to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, Mr Siemiatkowski was charged with “corporal punishment” and “depriving prisoners of their liberty”. His former AW deputy, Col Andrzej – who reportedly dealt directly with the CIA – is likely to and face similar charges.

Mr Siemiatkowski confirmed yesterday he had been questioned and did not rule out that he would face charges. “I refused to answer questions and shall continue to do so at every stage of the proceedings, including in court,” he told Gazeta Wyborcza.

The Polish state prosector’s office said yesterday that arrests had yet to be made in its secret four-year investigation.

The central claim is that the left-wing government of Leszek Miller allowed the CIA to operate a “black site” from the Stare Kiejkuty military base in northeastern Poland for almost a year until September 2003.

Polish investigators have drawn on testimony from Saudi citizen Abu Zubayadah that, as one of 14 “high-value detainees”, that he was imprisoned and tortured in various European “black sites” for nearly five years until he was transferred to the Guantánamo Bay US military prison in Cuba.

The Polish investigation comes as the European Parliament continues hearings into the existence of unofficial “black sites” in Poland and Romania, operated by the CIA to interrogate what it termed “enemy combatants” outside of international human rights agreements.

These sites were first mentioned in a 2005 Washington Post report; two years later the Council of Europe said detainees at such sites were subject to “enhanced interrogations”, including simulated drowning, also known as water-boarding.

Lithuania has admitted it allowed a CIA “black site” to operate on its territory. Three years ago, the CIA insisted it no longer operated such facilities.

Yesterday’s revelations raise the prospect of former Mr Miller and former president Aleksander Kwasniewski being asked to testify before Polish judges on the allegations of a Polish site.

“According to my knowledge, and as I have told you many times before, there were no CIA prisons in Poland,” said Mr Miller, who lost power in 2004.

A year earlier, however, Mr Kwasniewski reportedly learned of the existence of a Polish “black site” when President George W Bush thanked him “profusely” for Poland’s assistance in Washington’s anti-terrorism activities.

When he asked Polish intelligence about the full extent of its co-operation, he was told of CIA-leased aircraft flying in and out of a military airport near Warsaw – until he intervened.

“The last plane with CIA prisoners on board left Poland on 23 September 2003,” one unnamed source told the Polish newspaper.

Mr Kwasniewski declined to comment on yesterday’s report.