Poland admits to CIA planes landing on its territory

23 February, 2010, 15:19

Official flight logs released Monday confirm Poland hosted aircraft linked to a CIA program for secretly moving and holding terrorism suspects. It adds to the allegations that the country could have hosted a CIA prison.

The data from a government-run agency was made public after prompting by two human rights organizations. Previously, Polish authorities had vigorously denied the country’s involvement in the CIA’s project. The new findings could prove that Poland hosted one of the black sites, a network of CIA secret prisons overseas where terrorism suspects were kept and brutally interrogated.

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Wayne Madsen, an investigative journalist, told RT this will not be the last revelation about the case.

The story of Poland’s possible involvement into the CIA program was first run in 2005 by the Washington Post, “but they didn’t give the location. Now we know that there are two countries involved officially: Lithuania and Poland”, Wayne Madsen says.

Adam Bodnar from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, however, thinks it’s not a conspiracy.

“I think that the majority of politicians…did not know about this cooperation, it was most probably made on the level of intelligence services cooperation,” Bodnar told RT. “But if those facts are confirmed, then it means a criminal case is pending for those officers, we may also think about the tribunal of state which is the official constitutional organ dealing with violations of the constitution. We can also think about the potential case against Poland before the European court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.”

In 2007, a Council of Europe Report accused 14 European countries of cooperating with the CIA to run detention centers or carry out secret plans. In 2005, a human rights watchdog said Poland hosted a CIA secret prison where it is alleged Al-Qaeda prisoners were held and brutally interrogated.

Government spokesman Pawel Gras told AP that Polish authorities are still awaiting the results of a prosecutor’s investigation. The Prosecutor’s Office is currently looking into the country’s possible involvement in the CIA program.