The Government has been accused of hindering any investigation into alleged US rendition flights using Shannon Airport. Gordon Deegan reports.
Limerick peace activist Ed Horgan made the claim yesterday after gardaí failed to investigate for the second time in the past four weeks complaints over alleged rendition flights passing through Shannon.
In the early hours of yesterday morning, Mr Horgan along with another peace activist was arrested by gardaí for refusing to leave the airport terminal at Shannon.
Mr Horgan was in the viewing tower to see the arrival of an aircraft he claimed was "involved in the US rendition programme. We called Shannon Garda station to make a complaint and asked that the aircraft be searched but instead, two carloads of gardaí came and arrested us."
A Garda spokesman said the two were arrested under the Air Traffic and Navigation Act for refusing to obey an instruction to leave the airport terminal. They were later released. A file is to be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
However, Mr Horgan claimed last night that the Government, through the Department of Justice and the Attorney General's office, is hindering a criminal investigation into alleged rendition flights using Shannon.
He said the aircraft that touched down in Shannon yesterday morning was a sister aircraft of a US-registered Gulfstream jet that landed in Shannon on October 30th which was also the subject of a complaint to Shannon gardaí.
Shannon gardaí also refused to search that aircraft. Labour Party TD Michael D Higgins said the Gulfstream aircraft that stopped over in October "has the highest record of participation in extraordinary rendition flights, as established without doubt by the European Parliament and other European agencies".
Mr Higgins said the aircraft was on lease to the CIA "and has an outrageous record".
He told the Dáil on Thursday night that a local garda told Mr Horgan that under instruction from the Attorney General, he could not search the aircraft.
Mr Higgins asked: "Is it a fact that gardaí have been issued an instruction not to inspect planes? Why are planes not being inspected? Why are planes with a demonstrated unequivocal record of participation in illegality able to put down in Shannon and take off again without being inspected, and all on the basis that we have been given a special assurance by a friendly nation?"
However, in response, Minister of State for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Pat Carey said the aircraft that stopped over at Shannon for less than an hour was owned by a private company based in Las Vegas.
Mr Carey added: "The Government is completely opposed to the practice of so-called extraordinary rendition".
He said Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan strongly contested that the decision not to investigate the complaint and not to search the aircraft was because of an "instruction" that searches in general or searches of particular types or classes of aircraft should not occur.