Sun, Oct 12, 2008

World

EU's anti-terror chief: no proof of CIA prisons

The Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.21.2006
BRUSSELS, Belgium — Investigations into reports that U.S. agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centers have produced no evidence of illegal CIA activities, the European Union's anti-terror coordinator said Thursday.
The investigations also have not turned up any proof of secret arrest and transportation of terror suspects on EU territory, Gijs de Vries told a European Parliament committee investigating the allegations.
The European Parliament's probe and a similar one by the Continent's leading human-rights watchdog are looking into whether U.S. intelligence agents interrogated al-Qaida suspects at secret prisons in Eastern Europe and transported some on secret flights through Europe.
But so far investigators have not identified any human-rights violations, despite more than 50 hours of testimony by human-rights activists and individuals who claimed to have been abducted by U.S. intelligence agents, de Vries said.
"We've heard all kinds of allegations, impressions; we've heard also refutations. It's up to your committee to weigh if they are true. It does not appear to be proved beyond reasonable doubt," he said. "There has not been, to my knowledge, evidence that these illegal (activities) have taken place."
De Vries was invited to appear before the investigating committee Thursday. It was his first update since the investigation began in January.
De Vries came under sharp criticism from the EU parliament for refusing to consider earlier testimony from a German and a Canadian who described how they were kidnapped and imprisoned by foreign agents, and from a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who alleged that British intelligence services used information obtained under torture.