US: The Council of Europe is investigating a CIA flight through Shannon airport last year that may have been used to carry prisoners from Afghanistan to a secret prison in Romania.
The January 2004 flight is among 31 flights through European airports identified by New York-based Human Rights Watch as likely to have been used for "rendition" - or transferring prisoners to third countries for interrogation. "Shannon is definitely in there. It's at the beginning of the trip and it's probably a refuelling stop. But certainly it's part of a larger potential rendition flight," Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch told The Irish Times.
The aircraft, a Boeing 737 with the registration number N313P, is known among human rights activists as the "Guantanamo Express" because it was used to transfer prisoners from Afghanistan and elsewhere to Guantanamo Bay. According to flight logs obtained by Human Rights Watch, it flew from Washington to Shannon on January 16th, 2004. The following day, the aircraft flew from Shannon to Larnaca in Cyprus, from where it went on to Morocco, Algeria, Afghanistan, Majorca, Macedonia, Baghdad and back to Kabul.
On January 25th, the aircraft flew from Kabul to Timosoara in Romania, before flying on to Majorca and finally back to Washington.
"It's a direct flight from Kabul to Romania, which is very concerning . . . The only places we see these types of flights are from Afghanistan directly to Romania and Poland. This one certainly fits that pattern and therefore is suspect and so we call for an investigation," Mr Garlasco said.
Washington has assured the Government that it has not taken prisoners through Shannon but Mr Garlasco says Ireland may nonetheless be facilitating the US secret detention system. "They're being fuelled on the way into Afghanistan and it doesn't look like they're going through Shannon on the way out. . . I would say it raises concerns of facilitating renditions. Although I would have to have a lawyer look at whether or not it's considered material support," he said.
The Council of Europe, which is responsible for the European Court of Human Rights, and a number of EU governments are investigating claims that the CIA has run secret prisons in Romania and Poland and used European airports to transfer prisoners there.
The US has neither confirmed nor denied the reports of secret prisons but CIA director Porter Goss said last week that his agents did not engage in torture.
Unnamed CIA officers told ABC News this week, however, that they use "enhanced interrogation techniques" that include forcing a prisoner to stand, handcuffed and with shackled feet, for up to 40 hours, holding detainees naked in a cold cell and a technique called "water-boarding", which simulates drowning.
"The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt," the report said.
A CIA spokesperson yesterday declined to answer questions about the use of Shannon by CIA aircraft or the alleged secret prisons in Poland and Romania.
A spokesman for Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said the Minister had been assured on Tuesday by US ambassador James Kenny that Shannon had not been used for prisoner renditions.
Mr Ahern's spokesman said the Government would engage in any investigation by the Council of Europe. "However we have absolutely no evidence of any renditions of prisoners through Ireland and if any organisation has any evidence of specific incidents or flights, we would ask them to make it available to the Irish authorities," he said.
He said the United States was deemed a friendly country by the Government and that Mr Ahern accepted fully the assurances of the ambassador that no renditions had taken place or were planned for through Ireland.