Ireland among most complicit in renditions - report

A new European Parliament report has claimed Ireland is one of the most complicit countries in the EU in allowing CIA rendition flights to use its airspace and airports.

According to the final report from the special committe of the European Parliament set up to look into the alleged rendition flights, more than 1,000 covert CIA flights have crossed European airspace or stopped over at European airports.

Germany and Britain were also criticised for the alleged collusion.

The renditions have taken alleged terrorists all over the world for interrogation - including to countries not bound by international human rights codes in the treatment of suspects.

The report calls on EU member states to oppose the use of "diplomatic assurances" on torture in returning terrorism suspects. The Government repeatedly used the defence in the face of opponents calling for inspection of US planes or a ban on the US military use of Shannon.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said the report recognised that prisoners were not transferred through Irish territory as part of an extraordinary rendition operation.

"Instead of highlighting ways in which extraordinary rendition could be prevented in the future, the report indulges in political point-scoring. The suggestion, for example, that Ireland should institute a ban on all CIA-operated aircraft is extraordinary, especially given that Ireland is the only one of 27 member states to which this recommendation is addressed," he said.

"Given that this recommendation was inserted at the behest of an Irish MEP, I can only conclude that it was intended to serve partisan purposes."

Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa was among three Irish MEPs on the committee and told ireland.comthat he believed Mr Ahern's comments referred to him and denied the report engaged in "political point-scoring".

He also refuted Mr Ahern's inference that the document did not say prisoners were not transferred through Irish territory.

"This is categorically not true. Nowhere in the report does it say so. In fact it criticises the Irish Government for accepting diplomatic assurances on this point, and says that they are an insufficient basis for failing to take active steps to ensure that Irish territory is not being used either directly or indirectly in breach of our human rights obligations," he said.

"There are no fewer than 28 paragraphs of general proposals for dealing with the issue of renditions and the defence of human rights, and the ongoing efforts of all European states to counter international terrorism. There are additional proposals for particular countries such as Ireland, UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy etc."

He called on the Government to take action and ban the CIA flights if inspections could not take place.

"The Irish government needs to get serious on this issue and abandon its consistent response so far, to spin false stories, and to pretend there is no problem, despite the mounting weight of information to the contrary," he said.

The parliamentary committee, chaired by Italian socialist Claudio Fava, issued its draft findings last November and held oral hearings afterwards. There were angry exchanges between and Mr Ahern Mr Fava over what the minister said were unsubstantiated claims.

Roger Cole of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance said the Government had refused to seek evidence that the CIA flights were passing through Irish territory. "Ignorance of the law is not a defence," he added.

Mr Cole said although the Government had been given assurances by US officials, there had to be a previous record that the sources were reliable and accurate. He called on the Government to end the use of Shannon by the US aircraft.

The European Parliament inquiry committee, which visited London late last year to take evidence, singles out the United Kingdom, Italy and Poland as demonstrating "very great reluctance to fully co-operate" with the MEPs.

Today's report is seaparate from Council of Europe inquiry report last year said that the CIA ran a "global spider's web" of such flights, with European countries acting as staging posts.

Additional reporting Agencies