MEPs to continue CIA rendition investigations

European member states were warned yesterday that just because they were not named in an interim report investigating the use…

European member states were warned yesterday that just because they were not named in an interim report investigating the use of European countries by the CIA for extraordinary renditions, that did not mean they would not be in the future.

Ireland was not named in the interim report of the committee which was yesterday approved by a majority of the members.

But the chairman of the temporary committee, Carlos Coelho, told a press briefing that just because countries like Poland and Romania, where there are alleged illegal detention centres, were not mentioned, it did not mean an end to the investigation.

"We have six more months work and we are getting new information all the time, some of it very high grade and we will systematically go through this until we get to the truth," he said.

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The committee accused the CIA of being "directly responsible on several occasions of extraordinary rendition, illegal seizure, removal, abduction and detention of terrorist suspects on the territory of member states, accession and candidate countries," it said.

It added that all of the above actions constituted violations of fundamental rights under international law.

The chairman said the new information it was gathering included the logging of 1,800 flights by aircraft which were not bound "for tourist destinations".

The chairman said it was plausible that certain European countries were not aware of the activities linked to extraordinary rendition taking place on their territories but there were clearly cases where responsible people were turning a blind eye to what was happening.

The committee, which called for the closure of Guantánamo detention centre, also said it would invite the secretary general of Nato to a hearing to clarify the possible involvement of its forces in the illegal detention of six Bosnians who still remain in Guantánamo.

Fianna Fáil MEP Eoin Ryan said no accusations were made against Ireland concerning flights of rendition and Shannon had not been mentioned in the report.

"It is my opinion that Shannon airport would be of no service to the CIA in their flights of rendition," he said.

Simon Coveney, a Fine Gael MEP, said his resolution calling for the closure of the Cuban-based centre was accepted by the committee.

He said that the US military had made significant efforts to ensure that detainees were held in better conditions than before but the camp was still in violation of the rule of law.