The official report from the Council of Europe. “global ’spider’s web’ of US detentions and transfers, alleges active collusion by Council of Europe states”

Conclusions: (via BlairWatch)

280. Our analysis of the CIA ‘rendition’ programme has revealed a network that resembles a ’spider’s web’ spun across the globe. The analysis is based on official information provided by national and international air traffic control authorities, as well as on other information including from sources inside intelligence services, in particular the American. This ‘web’, shown in the graphic239, is composed of several landing points, which we have subdivided into different categories, and which are linked up among themselves by civilian planes used by the CIA or military aircraft.

281. These landing points are used for various purposes that range from aircraft stopovers to refuel during a mission to staging points used for the connection of different ‘rendition circuits’ that we have identified and where “rendition units” can rest and prepare missions. We have also marked the points where there are known detention centres (Guantanamo Bay, Kabul and Baghdad…) as well as points where we believe we have been able to establish that pick-ups of rendition victims took place.

282. In two European countries only (Romania and Poland), there are two other landing points that remain to be explained. Whilst these do not fall into any of the categories described above, several indications have us believe that they are likely to form part of the ‘rendition circuits’240. These landings therefore do not form part of the 98% of CIA flights that are used solely for logistical purposes241, but rather belong to the 2% of flights that concern us the most. These corroborated facts strengthen the presumption - already based on other elements - that these landings are detainee drop-off points that are near to secret detention centres.

COE map of the ‘global spiders web’ of secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers

Bloggers in Britain and Europe have been on this story hard. It’s a  big report and there’s much in it to digest and research.

European collusion with CIA extraordinary rendition and black sites

A damming COE report on extraordinary rendition, would Mr Blair care to reconsider his position?

Blair, Labour and extraordinary rendition

Ignorance is Bliss

Rendition now leads to CIA secret detention

Council of Europe reports on extraordinary rendition

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From The John Heron Project comes news that the selling-gallows-to-despots story was a hoax.

Would it be the rendition story was a hoax too…

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It’s official, numerous European countries colluded with the CIA, allowing kidnapped prisoners to pass through their countries on their way to being tortured elsewhere - amd maybe even to be tortured within their own country.

The UK, Germany and several other European countries illegally colluded with US extra-legal abductions in the “war against terror,” a report for the Council of Europe said on Wednesday.

The report to the Council of Europe, which brings together 46 European countries, also said there were strong indications that Poland and Romania hosted illegal US prisons – something the two countries have always denied.

Dick Marty, the Swiss politician who compiled the report, said that seven countries had violated known individuals’ human rights by participating in what he called a “spider’s web” of CIA detentions and transfers. The countries involved were the UK, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Sweden, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

“Authorities in several European countries actively participated with the CIA in these unlawful activities,” he said. “Other countries ignored them knowingly, or did not want to know.”

Rendition ‘massively damaging’ to counter-terrorism effort

The British government’s apparent support of CIA rendition flights is “massively damaging” in the battle against international terrorism, a former Foreign Office minister said today.

Tony Lloyd demanded that the Bush administration give “proper and definitive” answers to allegations that it has been kidnapping terrorist suspects and transferring them to countries where they could be tortured.

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Actor and environmental activist Ed Begley Jr. endorsed Bill Paparian, who is running for US Congress as a Green, at Paparian’s primary night party at the Pasadena Hilton last night. As it turns out, they’ve been friends since high school.

Begley details why an environmentally sound approach is also economically sound in his endorsement of Paparian.

mp3 (7:53, 2.57 mb)

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Would it be all politicians were like Bill Paparian. He’s antiwar, a tireless worker to end the embargo on Cuba, active in environmental groups, and says George Bush should be impeached. He is a lawyer and former mayor of Pasadena, CA.

Perhaps the most moving part of his speech, recorded at his primary night election party at the Pasadena Hilton on June 6, was detailing why he became a lawyer. He and Ed Begley Jr. were classmates at Van Nuys High in the 60’s. Both studied acting. Paparian, although antiwar then too, joined the Marines out of a sense of duty, planning to resume acting. One day a black Marine was severely beaten by members of the KKK (who had an active chapter on the base.) He befriended the black Marine, began reading the manuals and rules of law, and helped him get an early release. He said, I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was my first client. Paparian decided then and there to become a lawyer so he could use the system to help people, something he continues doing to this day.

That’s the kind of lawyer we need in D.C. Paparian4Congress.com.

mp3 (28:43, 9.48 mb)

(full disclosure: I designed Paparian’s website and received a modest amount for doing so.)

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