IRELAND: Pressure to carry out inspections at Shannon airport on US military and other aircraft used for military or security purposes is likely to increase, given the latest claims about a network of secret CIA camps in eastern Europe allegedly set up for the detention and interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects.
The campaigning organisation Human Rights Watch says the log of a Boeing jet with tailplane registration N313P - allegedly used to transfer terror suspects - shows that it flew from the Afghanistan capital, Kabul, in September 2003 to Poland, Romania, Morocco and on to the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.
The same aircraft is alleged by anti-war campaigners to have landed at Shannon on December 15th, 2003, while Newsweek magazine says it landed at Shannon on January 16th, 2004 en route from Washington to Cyprus, Morocco and Kabul.
Green Party spokesman on foreign affairs John Gormley accused the Government of "stonewalling" on the Shannon issue. He said: "If we are totally committed to upholding international law and given the circumstantial evidence, we should be searching these planes to verify whether or not suspects are being held on them."
Dr Kathleen Cavanaugh, a lecturer in international law and human rights at UCG and an executive committee member of Amnesty International Ireland, pointed to a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights that, even if a State itself was not engaged in torture, it could not facilitate the transfer of any person to another State suspected of torturing prisoners.
The Government had "a moral obligation" to ensure that these carriers were not being used to facilitate acts of torture.
"They must not accept the word of the US government but must make inspections themselves."
The only way of collecting evidence was for State officials such as the Garda to inspect the aircraft but they were unwilling to do so, despite all the allegations.
"If there are no soldiers in these planes, what are these planes being used for?" Dr Cavanaugh asked.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said in a reply to a parliamentary question that foreign military aircraft and aircraft carrying military cargo were not routinely inspected by the Garda and no inspections were carried out in the last two years.
He added: "The Garda Síochána conducts a full investigation in any case where a credible complaint of criminal activity is made, to include, where appropriate, an inspection of the aircraft in question."
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern told the Dáil last month that although there was "no concrete evidence" that prisoners were being transited through, nevertheless the Government had raised the issue at regular intervals with the US authorities who had categorically denied using Shannon for this purpose.
"If a government of the stature of the US government, which has such a connection with this country, gives us an absolute assurance in this regard, we accept it," Mr Ahern said.
A US embassy spokesman told The Irish Times: "We do not transit any detainees through Shannon. We have said that repeatedly."