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European Parliament says CIA responsible for illegal activities in Europe

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Brussels, July 6, IRNA
EP-CIA Rendition
The European Parliament approved Thursday an interim report of its Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners by 389 to 137 with 55 abstentions.

The CIA was in some cases directly responsible for the 'illegal seizure, removal, abduction and detention of terrorist suspects' in Europe, said the report.

European lawmakers also gave the responsible Temporary Committee the green light to continue its work for another six months.

It is 'implausible', the report says, 'that certain European governments were not aware of the activities linked to extraordinary rendition taking place on their territory'.

Such involvement or complicity, MEPs argue, was likely on the part of Italian authorities in the 2003 abduction of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar by CIA agents in Milan; on the part of Bosnian authorities in the abduction and transfer of six Bosnian nationals or residents of Algerian origin to Guantanamo Bay and on the part of Swedish authorities, who expelled Egyptian nationals Mohammed Al Zary and Ahmed Agiza, handing them over to CIA agents for transfer to Egypt.

EU member states 'may be held liable' for failure to comply with the European Convention of Human Rights, noted the report.

Sarah Ludford, British MEP and vice-president of the Temporary Committee said: "Parliament's committee has done a serious job, cooperating with the Council of Europe investigation but taking that forward with a special focus on EU and candidate states. Allegations have now moved beyond speculation to establishing a credible prima facie case. All member states suspected of complicity now have a duty to conduct their own inquiries to shed more light on these events." Meanwhile, the group of Liberal Democrats in the EP in a statement said that since 2001 there has been a progressive erosion of fundamental rights in the name of the fight against terrorism confirmed by recent events, the ruling of the US Supreme Court on Guantanamo and the arrest yesterday of a senior Italian intelligence officer by the Italian prosecutor investigating the extraordinary rendition allegations.

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