Investigator: US 'outsourced' torture (AP) Updated: 2006-01-24 19:48
The head of a European investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons in
Europe said Tuesday there was evidence the United States outsourced torture to
other countries and it was likely European governments knew about it.
Swiss politician Dick Marty gestures during a
seminar in Bucharest November 25, 2005. Marty said on Tuesday there was
much evidence of 'outsourcing of torture' by the United States but he had
not so far uncovered firm evidence the CIA operated secret prisons in
Europe. [Reuters] |
But Swiss senator Dick Marty said there was no formal evidence so far of the
existence of clandestine detention centers in Romania or Poland as alleged by
the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"There is a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the
existence of a system of 'relocation' or 'outsourcing' of torture," Marty said
in a report presented to the Council of Europe, the human rights watchdog
investigating the alleged secret prisons.
The report said more than 100 terror suspects may have been transferred to
countries where they faced torture or ill treatment in recent years.
"It is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their
intelligence services, were unaware," Marty said in the report.
The Council of Europe launched its probe after
allegations surfaced in November that U.S. agents interrogated key al-Qaida
suspects at clandestine prisons in eastern Europe and transported some suspects
to other countries passing through Europe.
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