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Background
CIA activities in Europe: summary of the European Parliament inquiry
Fundamental rights - 07-03-2007 - 16:43
Over 1,000 CIA-operated flights used European airspace from 2001 to 2005 and CIA temporary secret detention facilities "may have been located at US military bases" in Europe. Parliament now "expects the Council to put pressure on all the governments concerned to give full and thorough information to the Council and the Commission and, where necessary, to start hearings and commission an independent investigation without delay", says its enquiry report, adopted in plenary on 14 February 2007.
What began back in November 2005 with news reports of secret CIA detention centres in Eastern Europe quickly evolved into a series of high-profile investigations, at both the national (parliamentary) and the European (Council of Europe) levels. The European Parliament's Civil Liberties and Foreign Affairs committees, meeting in early December 2005, urged the house to open its own inquiry into the allegations. Several MEPs backed the idea of setting up a "committee of inquiry"; others favoured a "temporary committee". A committee of enquiry, according to the EP Rules of Procedure, has the right to probe alleged breaches of Community law. A temporary committee, by contrast, does not have investigative powers: it can invite, but not oblige, Member States' representatives to appear at its hearings.
In the end – and further to an EP legal service opinion that there were insufficient legal grounds for setting up a committee of enquiry – a 14 December 2005 meeting of Parliament's political group leaders agreed to set up the Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners . The next day, Parliament as a whole backed the agreement with a resolution calling for a "parliamentary inquiry", which "should at a minimum be conducted through a temporary committee". The formal decision to establish the committee was taken on 18 January 2006 at the Strasbourg plenary session.
The temporary committee's mandate was to examine whether the CIA, in its operations in Europe, had been involved in "extraordinary rendition", detention, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; whether such practices could be considered a violation of EU fundamental rights; whether European citizens were among the victims; and whether Member States were involved. The decision also noted that the committee would liaise and cooperate "as closely as possible" with the Council of Europe in the course of its investigation.
"Extraordinary rendition" is an American extra-judicial procedure which involves transferring untried criminal suspects, suspected terrorists or alleged supporters of groups which the US Government considers to be terrorist organizations, to countries other than the USA for imprisonment and/or interrogation.
The committee, during its constituent meeting of 26 January 2006, appointed Carlos Coelho (EPP-ED, PT) as its chair and Claudio Fava (PES, IT) as rapporteur.
REF.: 20060626BKG09303
Testimony from victims, officials and journalists
Over the year, committee members heard testimony from 172 people, including government officials, members of human rights organisations, EU representatives, journalists and extraordinary rendition victims.
Below we list some of those who spoke to the committee. A comprehensive list of invitees – including a ‘name-and-shame’ tally of persons who declined to appear before the committee – can be found in the annex of the committee’s final report.
NGOs
- Human Rights Watch
- Amnesty International
- Statewatch
Victims
- Khaled El Masri, Germany
- Maher Arar, Canada
- Murat Kurnaz, Germany
EU representatives, government officials
- Franco Frattini, Vice-President of the European Commission
- Gijs de Vries, EU Counter-terrorism coordinator
- Javier Solana, EU Foreign Policy Representative and Secretary-General of the Council
- Branko Crvenkovski, President of FYROM
- Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs
- Nicolò Pollari, Italian Intelligence and Security Services
- Luis Amado, Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs
- Miguel Angel Moratinos, Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs
- Geoff Hoon, UK Minister for Europe
- John Bellinger, Legal Adviser to the US State Department
Others
- James Woolsey, former CIA Director
- Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe
- Dick Marty, Council of Europe rapporteur on CIA activities in Europe
- Armando Spataro, prosecutor investigating the 2003 CIA kidnapping of Abu Omar, a Muslim cleric, in Milan
- Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan
- Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan
The Committee also sent seven official delegations: to Skopje, Washington, Berlin, London, Bucharest, Warsaw and Portugal.
Committee findings
Having produced an interim report in the spring of 2006 (adopted at the June plenary session in Strasbourg), the committee began to work on its final report in the autumn, whilst continuing to conduct hearings and investigations.
On 28 November 2006, rapporteur Claudio Fava tabled a draft final report, which was amended and adopted by the committee as a whole on 23 January 2007 (28 votes in favour, 17 against, and 3 abstentions). Parliament then debated, further amended and put this draft to a plenary vote on 14 February 2007 (382 votes in favour, 256 against and 74 abstentions).
The final report calls extraordinary rendition “an illegal instrument used by the USA in the fight against terrorism” and condemns the “condoning and concealing of the practice, on several occasions, by the secret services and governmental authorities of certain European countries”. It calls on the Council and the Member States "to issue a clear and forceful declaration calling on the US Administration to put an end to the practice of extraordinary arrests and renditions".
CIA flights
The final report concludes that “at least 1245 flights operated by the CIA flew into European airspace or stopped over at European airports between the end of 2001 and the end of 2005”. European countries, it says, have been "turning a blind eye" to such flights, which, "on some occasions, were being used for extraordinary rendition or the illegal transportation of detainees."
Working documents published by rapporteur Claudio Fava also cite “strong evidence of the extraordinary renditions analysed by the committee, as well as of the companies linked to the CIA (…) and the European countries in which the CIA made stopovers”. In its report, the committee mentions up to 21 cases of extraordinary rendition in which rendition victims were transferred through a European country or were residents in a European state at the time of their kidnapping. Bearing this in mind, the text "calls on the countries of Europe to compensate their innocent victims of extraordinary renditions”.
Possible use of torture
The final report notes that the renditions investigated by the committee “in the majority of cases involved incommunicado detention and torture” during interrogations, as was confirmed by the victims - or their lawyers - who gave testimony to the committee. According to the testimony of former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, the exchange of intelligence obtained under torture by third countries' secret services to the British services was a practice known and tolerated by the UK government. In light of the available evidence, note committee members, there is a "strong possibility that some European countries may have received [...] information obtained under torture".
"Not possible" to point to secret detention centres in Poland
"Temporary secret detention facilities in European countries may have been located at US military bases", says the final report, which explains that “secret detention facilities” also includes places where somebody is held incommunicado, such as "hotel rooms" – as in the well-publicised case of Khaled El-Masri, in Skopje.
In the final report, MEPs note that, in light of the available "circumstantial evidence", "it is not possible to acknowledge or deny that secret detention centres were based in Poland” (the draft final report had stated that “a temporary secret detention facility may have been located” on Polish territory). It did however mention that the names of "seven of the fourteen detainees" transferred from a secret detention facility to Guantánamo in September 2006 coincide with those of top Al Qaeda suspects (as cited in an ABC News report in December 2005), allegedly held in Poland.
Specific criticisms
Here are some specific criticisms from the final report:
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certain officials of the Italian military security services (SISMI) played an "active role" in the 2003 abduction of cleric Abu Omar in Milan; General Nicolò Pollari, former Director of the SISMI, "concealed the truth" when he stated "that Italian agents played no part in any CIA kidnapping"; knowledge of the Abu Omar rendition on the part of the Italian government was "very likely",
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the German government did not accept the US offer, made in 2002, to release rendition victim Murat Kurnaz from Guantánamo; Mr Kurnaz was interrogated twice by German officials in Guantánamo,
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the Polish government failed to co-operate with the committee, "in particular when receiving its delegation at an inappropriate level"; its attitude towards the temporary committee's work was marked by "an overall rejection",
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the FYROM authorities failed to deliver "a thorough investigation" into the Khaled El-Masri case;
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Romania, meanwhile, showed "reluctance" to investigate thoroughly "the existence of secret detention facilities on its territory", and
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the international community turned a blind eye when the decisions of the Supreme Court and the Human Rights Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ordering the release of six Algerian men from custody, were not implemented - a failure to act that resulted in their subsequent rendition to Guantanamo.
Furthermore, committee members complained about “omissions” in statements by the Council's High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, regarding its discussions with US representatives on counter-terrorism. Mr Solana, they say, “was unable to supplement the evidence already in the possession of the temporary committee”.
EU Counter-terrorism co-ordinator Gijs de Vries was similarly “unable to give satisfactory answers”, concluded MEPs. With this in mind, committee members took the view that the Counter-terrorism co-ordinator's competences and powers should be strengthened and monitored by the European Parliament.
Evidence implicates “all” EU Member States
The final report also deplored “the lack of co-operation of many Member States and of the Council of the EU towards the temporary committee” and explained that “the serious lack of concrete answers to the questions raised by victims, NGOs, media and parliamentarians has only strengthened the validity of already well-documented allegations”. The Council, they said, initially withheld -- and then provided only partial fragments of -- information pertaining to regular discussions with high-level US officials, behaviour which the report calls "totally unacceptable".
Such "shortcomings" of the Council, reads the final report, "implicate all Member State governments, since they have collective responsibility as members of the Council". As MEPs note later in the text, the Treaty-based "principle of loyal cooperation [...] which binds Member States and EU institutions to take any measures to ensure the fulfilment of the European obligations, such as the respect of human rights, [...] has not been respected".
The national governments specifically criticised for their unwillingness to co-operate with the committee’s investigations were those of Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the UK. The report also gives detailed evidence of investigations of illegal rendition or CIA flight cases involving Germany, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Belgium, Turkey, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Bosnia, Kosovo and Romania.
Policy recommendations
The report, which deplores the passivity of some Member States in the face of illegal CIA operations, and a lack of co-operation from the EU Council of Ministers, was approved in plenary session on 14 February 2007 with 382 votes in favour, 256 against and 74 abstentions.
Acknowledging that its conclusions are not "exhaustive", the final report encourages governments and/or national parliaments to launch (or to pursue) independent investigations. Most importantly, Parliament "expects the Council to put pressure on all the governments concerned to give full and through information to the Council and the Commission and, where necessary to start hearings and commission an independent investigation without delay".
Parliament instructs its Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, where necessary in cooperation with the Committee on Foreign Affairs, notably its Sub-Committee on Human Rights, to follow up politically the proceedings of the Temporary Committee (…) and to recommend to it any resolution, taking as a basis Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty on European Union, which may prove necessary in this context". (Article 7 provides for sanctions against Member States that are found to be in breach of EU fundamental rights).
The report recommends that all European countries should have "specific national laws to regulate and monitor the activities of third countries' secret services on their national territories"; moreover, it advised, over-flight clearances for military and/or police aircraft should be granted "only if accompanied by guarantees that human rights will be respected".
Lastly, the final report calls for the closure of Guantánamo and asks European countries "to immediately seek the return of their citizens and residents who are being held illegally by US authorities".
Further information :
- EP Rules of Procedure - temporary committees
- Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners
- CIA activities in Europe: European Parliament adopts final report deploring passivity from some Member States
- European Parliament's final report on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners