EP committee investigating CIA activity heads for US
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Brussels, May 7, IRNA
EU-CIA-Inquiry
A 13-member delegation of the European Parliament's temporary committee investigating alleged illegal activities by the US secret service, CIA, will be in Washington from Monday to Friday to meet representatives of the US administration, members of Congress and various experts.
The cross-party committee of 46 Members of the European Parliament MEPs was established in January in order to examine allegations of the CIA's involvement in illegal detention and kidnapping in European countries with the assistance of local authorities.
Last month EP committee in its interim report said it found that the CIA carried out as many as 1,000 secret flights through Europe since the 9/11 attacks.
The report also said that the CIA kidnapped terror suspects from European countries and took them away to some Middle East countries or to the US detention camp in Guantanamo, Cuba for torture.
The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, in a recent report also said that illegal CIA rendition flights had taken place in Europe.
Washington has rejected the reports.
"These allegations that there have been thousands of flights with the implication that they all have got detainees on them ... is simply absurd," John Bellinger, the legal advisor to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in Brussels on Thursday.
Members of the EP Committee feel that European governments are trying to cover-up illegal CIA rendition flights that took place in Europe.
EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana was strongly criticized by members of the EP Committee in Brussels on Tuesday for saying that he has no information if the allegations on CIA rendition flights and secret prisons in Europe are true.
The EU foreign policy chief also asserted that under EU treaties he had no competence to seek information from EU member states on the issue.
"Surely you have a political obligation as secretary general of the EU Council to investigate these allegations," British Liberal MEP Sarah Ludford told Solana.
"You claim that under the narrow remit of article seven of the EU treaty, you have no power to investigate -- but you do have a political duty. Saying you can do nothing paints such a pathetic picture of the EU," she noted.
Solana did say that secret detention centers in Europe would be illegal in theory.
The EP committee members said in Brussels on Thursday that they were met with a 'wall of silence' by authorities in Macedonia during a fact-finding mission to find out if a German man of Lebanese origin, El-Masri, was abducted in Macedonia and taken to Afghanistan by CIA agents for questioning.
"We asked a lot of questions but we did not get very many answers to those questions," said Italian MEP Claudio Fava, the rapporteur of the EP committee.
Socialist MEPs of the committee have called for a NATO representative to appear before the committee to answer questions concerning the possible involvement of SFOR personnel in the abduction of six people from Bosnia.
Appearing before the EP's Foreign Affairs Committee in Brussels on Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer said he was unable to answer the question concerning the reported abduction in Bosnia.
Meanwhile, an UN Committee against torture began a hearing in Geneva on Friday on alleged use of torture by American soldiers.
Twenty-five US officials from the justice, state and defense departments are facing the international body to answer questions on abuses by US soldiers and intelligence agents in the fight against terrorism.
The US delegation is to respond in detail on Monday to concerns raised by the 10-member UN panel.
Meanwhile, the next report of the EP committee is awaited with interest.
"What is left is to explain the scope of coordination between the CIA and the EU intelligence services in the fight against terrorism.
This will be the center of the second part of our investigation," Claudio Fava, rapporteur of the Committee told journalists.
260/1430/2322/1412
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