CIA flights in Europe round-up

by - Fri Nov 18, 2005 12:40

-

12th march 2004, the day after the madrid bombing the Guantanamo express Boeing 737 N313p leaves Mallorca.

by anon Fri Nov 18, 2005 13:26

And Big Gitmo Express "Cargo plane" the Boeing 737 N313P in Shannon on 15 December 2003 and Janurary 17 2004 (coming from Washington heading east)

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67864
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67865

Potrivit Newsweek, avionul Boeing 737, avand indicativul N313P, a plecat din Washington in data de 16 ianuarie 2004, facand escale la Shannon, in Irlanda (17 ianuarie), la Larnaca, in Cipru (21 ianuarie) si la Sale, in Maroc (22 ianuarie). Ulterior, aparatul a ajuns la Kabul si apoi la Alger (22 ianuarie), pentru ca in data de 23 ianuarie sa ajunga la Palma de Mallorca, de unde a plecat spre Skopje, in Macedonia. A doua zi, 24 ianuarie, avionul a decolat spre Bagdad si, in aceeasi zi, a ajuns din nou la Kabul. In data de 25 ianuarie, avionul ar fi facut escala la Timisoara, ajungand a doua zi (26 ianurie) la Bucuresti, de unde a decolat spre Palma de Mallorca. La 28 ianuarie, avionul a plecat spre aeroportul Dulles din Washington. Revista afirma ca aceste dovezi demonstreaza existenta unui sistem penitenciar global nevazut, unde sunt interogate persoanele suspecte de terorism.

http://www.hotnews.ro/articol_36088-Avionul-inchisoare-al-CIA-ar-fi-aterizat-si-in-Romania.htm
Can't find translation for this Romanian article(Nov 4th) but info is there,correct me if I wrong.

by iosaf Fri Nov 18, 2005 13:56

(romanian is a latin language trick is say it out loud in a moany voice and pretend its sardinian)

they detail some of the "big ones" flights.
Boeing 737, N313P, in that little quote above and then in the article http://www.hotnews.ro/articol_36088-Avionul-inchisoare-al-CIA-ar-fi-aterizat-si-in-Romania.htm go onto list other flights and denial of the prison, but admit flights going to the airport. They also point the finger at Poland, and suggest that N313p has been renamed N4476S.
interestingly at other link http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67865 this is exactly what Tim said would happen in 2004...

by iosaf Fri Nov 18, 2005 17:58

On page 16 of todays Irish Times 18/11/05 volume 47474 there is an article from "Berlin" by Craig Whitlock who writes for the LA Times. Its entitled "Inquiries into CIA aircraft begin". It gives scant details on the investigations into flights and aircraft widely held to be connected to the illegal "extra-ordinary rendition" of prisoners.

Prisoners who have not been arrested, charged, tried or sentanced in any of the countries concerned.
Countries which form part of the EU and those which do not. Countries which are neutral and those which are not. There is a lot of very serious concern in the nordic block, the baltic block and the iberian peninsula at what the CIA have been and are doing.

& it didn't come out of the air, (pun). For a long time activists have it appears done exactly what some of Europe's secret services have also been doing, with less high tech equipment and more openly reporting their actions every step of the way on sites such as this.

Their task was monitoring US and CIA air traffic which appears to be in breach of international law and treaties. Our task was to tell you "the public" about it.

Much of this work has been done in Ireland at Shannon Airport.

Ireland is a "neutral state". In the last days, a government minister who laughingly pointed a 9mm at you in a photo from the same newspaper (Irish Times) and argued the need to "restrict free speech" has also maintained that there is and was (for 50 years) a normal relation with the USA in all matters and in particularly regards it airport.

Willie with the 9mm is only one of the FF/PD regime who have told you repetitively that "nothing unusual" was or is going on. They all have maintained there is nothing "untoward".

So then why is Shannon airport the destination or departure point for many of those CIA flights which are now causing concern in the commercial press and governments of Ireland's friends and neighbours?

And moreover why is the Irish Times omitting to include any mention of Shannon?

I ask you to write letters. Simply as a mark of respect to those Irishmen and women who have kept an eye on their airport, rather than leave it to a politician with a 9mm.
************************
Today I got that print copy of the Irish Times, an unusual event, because its not sold on kiosks in Barcelona. But I had already started this thread.
Because i felt the importance of what has occured is being missed. If you get to see an IT in BCN you have to meet someone off a plane. Which I did. & then as luck would have it later on in the day I met someone else off a plane from the very airport in Mallorca where the Guardia Civil started this whole story. Becuase I occasionally go to the tiny little island of Formentera nearby. Perhaps that copy of the IT meant I live in the sort of Europe with a plentiful supply of civilised people who trundle around from Dublin to Shannon, from Formentera to Canarias and can at a push understand written Romanian.
:-)

A Europe where such investigation and concern is as much a duty as a right.

gurbh maith agaibh

by Gary Fri Nov 18, 2005 18:46

After a gang of Al-Qaida terrorists were caught red handed trying to blow up a nuclear reactor near Sydney potentially with the deaths of millions of innocent people why are you so concerned about the human rights of terrorist suspects?
Personally if I knew Al-Qaida were planning to bomb Dublin and I had a suspected Al-Qaida terrorist in custody who might know something I would have no qualms about torturing him even if in the end I might turn out to be mistaken and he turned out to be entirely innocent and the planned attack was merely a rumour.

by galileo Fri Nov 18, 2005 18:53

-------------------------------------------------it -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------moves

>Good, that's a wrap.
>>about time.
>are you sure thats what he said?
>>>jayzhus i'm the translator, its a maligned profession, though he might have meant "she moves".
>ok sign here, Randstad or Manpower or Adecco will send you a cheque soon.
>>he's dead now.
>doesn't matter no-one will notice.
>>>can I go back in the same posh jet?
>of course, we haven't actually worked out anyother way of travelling, you can't put hitch-hiking on expenses, and we sort of stand out on Eurolines coaches
>>>its because of the dark glasses and the little curly white wire going down the back of your shirt.
>regulation. can't take them off.
>>what will we do with Galileo?
>you mean his dead body?
>>yeah.
>well heck I noticed some ovens when I came in here first.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This goes down on your permenant record.

by Bobcat Fri Nov 18, 2005 19:47

I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem torturing somebody else Gary but what if it was you? Or a member of your family? Torture is an extreemely ineffiecient way of getting information. And then there's the question of the slippery slope: if you let a foreign government snatch people at random, stash them in a far away place and torture them (potentially for years) without any sort of accountability what comes next? Surely it isn't world peace

by Gary Sat Nov 19, 2005 11:43

"I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem torturing somebody else Gary but what if it was you? Or a member of your family? Torture is an extreemely ineffiecient way of getting information. And then there's the question of the slippery slope: if you let a foreign government snatch people at random, stash them in a far away place and torture them (potentially for years) without any sort of accountability what comes next? Surely it isn't world peace"

The CIA are very unlikely to torture me because I am a white Irishman with no extremist religious beliefs nor extremist political associations advocating the destruction of Western civilisation the establishment of a worldwide theocracy nor the genocide of Jews and infidels.
The vast majority of Muslims are of course peaceful like you and me but the fact is that most terrorists are Muslims.
Torture is not efficient but it is often the last resort if a terrorist has information in his head about planned attacks that could kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people and time is not on your side in preventing such an attack.

Who said the CIA is snatching people at random? All the guys in Guantanamo are members or associates of Islamist terrorist organisations - these guys know about the extent of the al-Qaida network .
By the way haven't you heard that there is a worldwide Islamic terrorist organisation led by Ossama Bin Laden which is a federation of loosely allied violent groups who have been responsible attacks in New York and Washington, Madrid, London, Bali, Algeria, Jordan, Moscow, Chechnya, Beslan, Indonesia, Tailand, Kashmir, New Dehli, Pakistan, Dagestan, Kasakstan, Iraq, Kenya, Aden, Bahrain, Egypt and many many other places. These guys are completely unaccountable and their idea of world peace is global Islamic empire. Thats a slippery slope I don't want to slide down.
I would have no qualms about abusing their human rights.

by iosaf Sat Nov 19, 2005 13:18

they have demanded in London that the European Comission investigate their records of flights.

The airports invovled are in Mallorca, Ireland, Sweden, Germany, FYR Macedonia and the UK itself.

I wonder where some people begin on the "no qualms to torture" thing. It seems to me that they have resigned all responsibility for the "war on terror" to the USA and the CIA.

Has it not occured to these people, that the war on terror has been fought more succesfully in other countries than in the USA? Has it not occured to them that most safe convictions and criminal prosecutions of Al Qaeda terrorists have been in the very European states that are complaining at illegal CIA "extra-ordinary rendition" practises? Are they so in awe of the movie and television image of the CIA that they think other intelligence services are incapable of investigating terrorists groups, untrustworthy for interrogating suspects, or inappropriate for bringing cases under national and international law for the atrocities planned or organised in their own sovreign states?

If an al qaeda cell were to be operating in London or Dublin or Paris , would they so quickly resign national sovreignty to the CIA and put the case beyond safe judicial process?

Maybe they would for dublin, thats why Mc Dowell is believed to have signed a "secret treaty", but I assure readers that the DGSE in France, or CNI in Spain do not have such a cavelier attitude to the role they play in the war on terror.

It is a war which has brought terror to Spain, and Spain responded in many different ways, with the most troops stationed in Afghanistan of any of the ISAF UN supported _legal_ military intervention. Are the actions of the USA assisting or undermining that commitment?

It seems to me that people in Ireland really have to realise that though the term "war on terror" was invented by the US, at no time was the US assigned a managerial or directorship of defence or investigation. To put it in sadly violent terms, the Swedish, the Spanish, The British, The Germans are all well capable of torturing their own terrorist suspects.

In 4 years, the war on terror has only been able to safely convict people for being members of organisations. All other suspects have either been held illegaly by the USA first as "enemy combatants" and most recently as "extra-ordinary renditions". The minority of suspects have posthumously proved their guilt by dying in suicide attempts, in which case they are not legally suspects. Over 80% of cases succesfully brought against the perceived structure of Al Qaeda were lead by Spanish judge/prosecutor Balthazar Garzón (presently on sabbitical) under operation dactil [2001-2003].

In that same 4 years the USA and CIA and FBI have only brought one conviction - Zacarias Moussaoui pleaded guilty in a US court on April 22, 2005 to all charges against him but denied he was involved in a "911 massacre plot". He is yet to be sentanced.

Both France and Germany are upholding international human rights law, and EU law and challenging the federal prosecution of the USA and will withdraw their evidence making any convicion unsafe if the death penalty is passed.

On April 27, 2005, French Justice Minister Dominique Perben reminded of the engagement taken by the United States of America not to require the death penalty against Moussaoui-

"When France gave elements of informations about Mister Moussaoui to the American justice, I obtained a written engagement of the United States not to use these elements to require or execute the death penalty".

So you will see, that "proper grown up countries" with aircraft carriers, high tech weapons, dark prisons and big armies have a different attitude to how to fight "this war on terror". Why are Irish commenters so sure the CIA are doing a good job?

The Germans themselves have accused the CIA of kidnapping, of "flying in - getting out of their jet - putting a big bag over someone's head and flying him out for a few months".

Yet some commentators can say they're not sure its happening. Maybe the German government made it up. And to be silly used the same evidence that we consistently present. Or maybe thbe germans were also watching the same suspect. Perhaps the germans or another friendly or ally state had its investigation scuppered by the superman illegal antics of the CIA.

Certainly the Germans are complaining at the shoddiness of the US investigation. Just as Spain did, (why was Garzón on sabbatical sent to lecture the FBI on islamic terrorist investigations?)
Germany acquitted Moroccan born Mounir el Motassadeq of charges relating to 911in a retrial in august. He is serving a 9 year sentance for "membership in a terrorist organization" since 19/8/05 after the USA refused to co-operate his earlier sentance of 15 years for 3000 counts of murder passed in Germany in February 2003 was overturned.

So there a few examples of how the USA and the CIA are messing up.

Are you still prepared to let them mess up more?

by A10 Sat Nov 19, 2005 14:25

Wouldnt exactly hold up France and Spain as paragons of human rights respecters when it comes to torture and interrgation measures.Ask any ETA or Action Directe member who has the pleasure of meeting the respective services.
Also "the war on terror" term was not invented in the US govt it was a media hype term from a quote that has become common daily use.
It is intresting to note that those countries that are not part of the "collation of the willing" also have large muslim pouplations of their own and seem to go softly softly on any terrorists they try or convict.Maybe it is called appeasement?
As for interrgation or torture,if I or my family or whoever get involved in planning atrocities or comitting them and we get caught you should expect not to be handled with kid gloves.
Far as I am concerned,if the French,Germans,Swedes,Spanish,or whoever can get useable info out of Islamic terrorists by any means and can do it more efficently and quicker than the CIA.Let them at it,anything to defeat this threat to our way of life.

by anon Sat Nov 19, 2005 14:26

The protesters, members of Stop Torture Now, were arrested for trespassing on Aero Contractors' property while trying to deliver the nine-page document to officials at the company, but were unsuccessful. Other demonstrators held signs on a nearby highway that labeled the company's planes "CIA Torture Taxis."

Their Press Release
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=56943

A local TV station has video report and background.
http://www.wral.com/news/5355295/detail.html

by Bobcat Sat Nov 19, 2005 21:19

Gary, in case you haven't heard most of the people being held in Guantanamo Bay have not been charged with any crime (see the Guardian earlier this week), some have been held and tortured for three years. And yes 'at random' is the proper way to describe many of the renditions. Look at stories of people being snatched off the streets of Pakistan or Afghanistan by local intellegence agencies and being sold to the CIA.
While it is well and good that you are a white male my point is that once a torture machine like this gets started it is very hard to stop, it becomes easier to justify expanding torture, so one day it could be white christians being tortured. Anyway, is it somehow ok as long as it doesn't happen to you?

by redjade Sun Nov 20, 2005 14:25

November 19. 2005
Protesters say tiny N.C. airport housing planes used by CIA
The Associated Press
http://www.the-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051119/APN/511190670&cachetime=5

Protesters want Johnston County officials to investigate a company it claims has housed planes used by the CIA to covertly shuttle terrorism suspects to countries where they're possibly tortured.

About 60 protesters, some traveling from St. Louis and Chicago, gathered at the Johnston County Airport Friday, where 14 of them were arrested by sheriff's deputies after they trespassed.

They asked local officials to investigate the allegations against Aero Contractors, which has leased about eight acres from the airport since 1979. The company provides planes and pilots for charter flights.

by iosaf Mon Nov 21, 2005 15:14

[CIA interrogators use "a variety of unique and innovative ways" to collect "vital" information from prisoners but strictly obey laws against torture, CIA Director Porter Goss said in an interview published today by the USA today tabloid.
interview :-
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-20-cia-detainees_x.htm
other articles published in the same PR exercise :-

["House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., and Jane Harman of California, senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee — say nervousness among rank-and-file CIA interrogators is a growing intelligence concern.".....""You have an area where American interrogators fear that a liberal judge is going to hold them or find them criminally or civilly liable for merely isolating a terrorist," Hunter says. "It's going to be very difficult to conduct effective interrogations that could save American lives."]
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-20-cia-interrogators_x.htm

Is the CIA losing influence to john Negreponte?
["Is the CIA losing influence? Goss scoffs at the suggestion. It's not apparent, he says in an interview, in the record number of applicants to the agency — about 130,000 in the past year. The CIA, Goss says, "is the flagship of the business. ... It is where you come if you want the gold standard."]
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-20-goss-inside_x.htm

__________________________________

On the other side of the squeek, turn of the screw, eye dropper full of Sodium Pentathol:-

"Manfred Nowak, the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on Torture, will stay for about two weeks and visit Beijing, Tibet and the restive western Muslim region of Xinjiang. He is also scheduled to visit detention centres.

China says it does not condone torture or forced confessions, and has asked courts to think twice before handing down the death penalty lest judgements be based on confessions forcefully extracted in prison.

This summer, China's parliament passed a bill mandating punishment for policemen who torture detainees during interrogation and other offences."

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6254065&cKey=1132554065000

---- and your final link to the delights of dark dungeons and high speed luxury air flights today ;

Romania to allow inspectors to visit the alledged CIA camps to prove .- "there _*_was_*_ no camp".

Oh well, they'll find nothing except a few twigs blair witch project style...
http://www.figaro.fr/europe/20051121.FIG0087.html?074409

you may feel a little dizzy followed by some discomfort but then it all be ok. jeez you look like mister Blair now.

by redjade Mon Nov 21, 2005 20:15

Fourteen people were arrested for trespassing at Johnston County Airport this morning after they gathered to protest the use of the airport by a company that reportedly shuttles prisoners for the CIA.

The protesters walked around a barbed wire fence, hung a sign at the offices of Aero Contractors Ltd. and then sat in a circle to pray before being arrested. The sign accused Aero Contractors of being a "CIA Torture Taxi."

. . . . .

Photo:
Bill Ramsey, center, of St. Louis was one of 14 people arrested this morning at the Johnston County Airport after they gathered to protest the use of the airport by a company that reportedly shuttles prisoners for the CIA.

more at
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/368680.html

And at
Binghamton Indymedia
http://www.binghamtonpmc.org/newswire/display/1540/index.php

Details from the Protestors themselves...

http://www.stoptorturenow.org/site/weblog.php

Fourteen of the protestors were arrested outside the offices of Aero Contractors Ltd. Eight were from the social justice activist community in and around the Johnston County, NC area, five were activists from Stop Torture Now and the Center for Theology & Social Analysis in St. Louis, and one, Kathy Kelly, founder of Voices in the Wilderness, was from Chicago. The activists were arrested while presenting their open lament for the victims of the CIA torture policy, including those detainees who have been renditioned with the help of Aero Contractors. Download video excerpts of the action here.
http://www.stoptorturenow.org/action/AeroContractorsSmall.mov
(Quicktime - 35.5MB)

Bill Ramsey, center, of St. Louis was one of 14 people arrested this morning at the Johnston County Airport after they gathered to protest the use of the airport by a company that reportedly shuttles prisoners for the CIA.

by iosaf Tue Nov 22, 2005 13:37

The Council of Europe has engaged Dick Marty, a Swiss senator to co-ordinate investigations as the Berliner Zeitung newspaper says the CIA "air company" "Tepper Aviation" have used german airports at least 7 times.
The most interesting "new" case being reported is of a Hércules AC-130 which on the morning of the 21st of January 2003 left USAF airbase Rhein Main for Baku in Azerbazhan.

Dick Marty has formally requested satelite imagery of both Poland and Romania from the EU satelite centre which is interestingly just down the road from the CNI (spanish secret service). The spanish vice-PM has confirmed that the CNI and CIA will continue to co-operate and work together btw.

And the EU is to today formally ask the CIA to answer the accusations, whilst they (the CIA) continue to maintain that they never break the law, but that they're very good at what they do which is why we all feel so safe.

by Coilín Wed Nov 23, 2005 21:46

By no means a comprehensive update!

1. Council of Europe opens probe into CIA prisoner flights
2. Several nations have asked Britain, as holder of the EU presidency, to seek clarification about reports of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe.
3. CIA prison aircraft landed in Finland in 2003 -Finnish newspaper
4. Opposition suspects CIA planes landed in Portugal

Best,
Coilín.


AFX News Limited
Council of Europe opens probe into CIA prisoner flights
11.23.2005, 07:30 AM
STRASBOURG (AFX) - The Council of Europe announced today the opening of a probe into reports of planes used by the US spy agency CIA to transport suspected terrorists transiting via European airports.
The planes have been spotted at airports in Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden as well as Morocco, raising questions of whether they are being used to convey suspects subjected to extra-judicial detention and torture.
The pan-European human rights body's parliamentary assembly is already investigating reports of secret prisons for some of the CIA's most important Al-Qaeda captives at secret sites in member states which surfaced in the Washington Post earlier this month.
http://www.forbes.com/finance/feeds/afx/2005/11/23/afx2351509.html
http://tinyurl.com/9fevx

****
The Times November 23, 2005
World in Brief
Times Online, UK
Britain asked to check 'CIA jails'
Brussels: Several nations, among them Finland and the Netherlands, asked Britain, as holder of the EU presidency, to seek clarification from the US about reports of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. The Council of Europe is investigating claims that al-Qaeda suspects were held in Soviet-era compounds.
Several other European nations are also looking into reports that secret CIA flights touched down in their territory while carrying prisoners. (AP)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1884670,00.html

****

NewsRoom Finland
UPDATE w COMMENT: CIA prison aircraft landed in Finland in 2003 -Paper
23.11.2005 at 12:23
(Adds comment from the Finnish Civil Aviation Administration.)
A Lockheed C-130 cargo aircraft with the text "Prescott" painted on its fuselage landed at Finland's Helsinki-Vantaa aiport on 16 May 2003, reports the Wednesday issue of Borgåbladet, a Finnish Swedish-language newspaper.
Prescott Support, according to Wayne Madsen, a former US National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence officer, is a front used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to transport its prisoners.
The paper adds that the aircraft carried on to Stockholm, where it was seen the next day.
Erkki Tuomioja (soc dem), the Finnish foreign minister, said last week that Finnish authorities were not aware of any CIA flights having entered Finnish airspace.
...

http://newsroom.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=10865&group=Politics
http://tinyurl.com/a4b39

[Note that Vantaa is a major civilian airport near Helsinki. I have flown in and out of Vantaa myself several times. The last time I flew out of there, Seamus Heaney sat beside me, and he won the Nobel Prize a few weeks later. As far as I know, neither of us has ever done any kind of military service.]

****

Opposition suspects CIA planes landed in Portugal
23 Nov 2005 18:24:21 GMTSource: Reuters
LISBON, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Portugal's left-wing opposition asked the government on Wednesday to explain a news report suggesting that CIA airplanes had used airports in Portugal to transport Islamic militant suspects. Portuguese weekly magazine Focus published pictures on Wednesday of several airplanes at Portuguese airports this year. It said they were planes used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and could have been carrying militant suspects. "No aircraft from the CIA has landedwith the government's permission or knowledge on Portuguese territory," since the Socialist government came to power in March, Foreign Ministry spokesman Antonio Carneiro Jacinto told Reuters.
Fernando Rosas, a parliamentary leader from the Left Bloc opposition party, requested that Foreign Minister Diogo Freitas do Amaral appear before parliament's constitutional and rights commission to explain the photos.
...
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L23748423.htm

****

by kvm Thu Nov 24, 2005 10:14

Human Rights Watch has seen flight details for Poland and Romania, names probable camp locations

by Cornelius Coot Sun Nov 27, 2005 12:11

The rendition flights have been spotted at Schiphol Airport, the Netherlands, in the past two weeks.
Allegedly they were coming from Istanbul on their way to Reykjavik.

SInce y'all can read Gaelic and Romanian you will be able to swallow Dutch too:
http://www.nrc.nl/binnenland/artikel/1132552911132.html

by Cornelius Coot Sun Nov 27, 2005 13:07

Had not noticed I had made a landing at Indymedia Ireland without noticing (started at US) - so my remark about Gaellic is a bit silly. Apologies.
Anyway - thank God, Goodness and Whomever for planespotters - these planes cannot go unnoticed anymore, at least not in Europe.