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UN reveals role of US base in Germany to take suspects to Guantanamo

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Berlin, Dec 6, IRNA
Germany-US-Prisoners
The Germany-based US European military headquarter (EUCOM) was the staging ground for CIA's worldwide kidnappings of terror suspects to the Guantanamo prisoner camp, the weekly Die Zeit newspaper quoted the UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak in a report to be published on Thursday.

Confidential US documents clearly point out that the kidnappings of terror suspects to Guantanamo were prepared at the US EUCOM base in the south German city of Stuttgart, added Nowak who is an Austrian human rights lawyer.

The UN official referred to the case of six terror suspects who were kidnapped to Guantanamo after being acquitted by Bosnia's highest court on terrorist charges in January 2002.

Nowak who was one of five authors of a recent UN report on the detention of captives at the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said that Germany's judiciary was obligated to launch an investigation into the affair.

German opposition lawmakers called last month for an inquiry into the role of the Germany-based US European military (EUCOM) headquarters in the illegal transport of terror suspects to the notorious American Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

German television reported earlier that the EUCOM headquarters, located in the southern city of Stuttgart, played a major role in the in the 2002 transport of terror suspects.

Germany's ARD public television network said that the US European Command headquarter was used to organize the January 2002 transfer of six Algerian prisoners from Bosnia to the US air base in Incirlik, Turkey.

ARD quoted what it said was a secret EUCOM report.

German prosecutors announced earlier they were investigating a report that US officials used a military headquarter in Stuttgart to help coordinate the transfer of terror suspects.

The German government claimed earlier that it had "no knowledge of such flights."

Deputy government spokesman, Thomas Steg stressed that since EUCOM is a "facility of the US government", Berlin could not provide information about individual activities of EUCOM.

OT/1430/1416