AGENTS SAY SECRET JAILS WERE SHUT IN A HURRY
By Daniel McGrory
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A MURKY WORLD OF SECRET ABDUCTIONS AND TORTURE
(See Below)

The Times
December 07, 2005

THE CIA was accused yesterday of shutting down two secret prisons
holding al-Qaeda terror suspects in Eastern Europe before Condoleezza
Rice's tour of the region.

The suspects were reportedly hurriedly moved to a new CIA-run
facility hidden in a North African desert to allow the US Secretary of
State to tell her European hosts that nobody was being held on their
soil. Intelligence chiefs are also preparing new flight plans to avoid
refuelling stops at European airports by aircraft operated by the CIA.

Renegade CIA officers who oppose the reported use of torture by fellow
agents are alleged to be leaking details of the whereabouts of some
of America's most highly valued detainees to campaigners.

The latest leak, reported by ABC News yesterday, was that 11 suspects
were recently moved after revelations that the CIA was holding them in
Poland and Romania â€" Dr Rice's latest stop on her European tour. The
detainees are said to include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is believed
to have orchestrated the September 11 attacks on the US.

A MURKY WORLD OF SECRET ABDUCTIONS AND TORTURE
By Anne Penketh

The Independent/UK
07 December 2005

Condoleezza Rice virtually shrugged off a formal EU request for
clarification about CIA-chartered "ghost flights" last night, as
the American intelligence agency was accused of having deliberately
misled Italian investigators looking into the disappearance of an
Islamic cleric.

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian also known as Abu Omar, was
abducted in 2003 from Milan. He was flown to Egypt, where he says he
was tortured.

Italian investigators have charged 22 alleged CIA operatives with
kidnapping.

The Washington Post, quoting court documents, said the CIA allegedly
spread disinformation to cover the agents' tracks by informing
anti-terror police that the cleric had fled to an unknown location
in the Balkans.

Germany is investigating reports that German airports were used 437
times by the CIA-leased planes, which may have taken terror suspects to
secret prisons where they could be tortured. More than 210 such flights
have been logged as passing through almost 20 airports in Britain.

According to Amnesty International, which says that 800 secret CIA
flights for "extraordinary renditions" had been made in European air
space since September 2001, Abu Omar was flown from Italy to Egypt
in February 2003 on a CIA-leased plane which then returned to Shannon
in Ireland.

Ms Rice, the US Secretary of State, responded to a written British
request on behalf of the EU for clarification about the "ghost flights"
by attaching a copy of her statement issued on Monday in Washington,
in which she said that the US did not condone torture and had acted
in co-operation with governments.

Condoleezza Rice virtually shrugged off a formal EU request for
clarification about CIA-chartered "ghost flights" last night, as
the American intelligence agency was accused of having deliberately
misled Italian investigators looking into the disappearance of an
Islamic cleric.

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian also known as Abu Omar, was
abducted in 2003 from Milan. He was flown to Egypt, where he says he
was tortured.

Italian investigators have charged 22 alleged CIA operatives with
kidnapping.

The Washington Post, quoting court documents, said the CIA allegedly
spread disinformation to cover the agents' tracks by informing
anti-terror police that the cleric had fled to an unknown location
in the Balkans.

Germany is investigating reports that German airports were used 437
times by the CIA-leased planes, which may have taken terror suspects to
secret prisons where they could be tortured. More than 210 such flights
have been logged as passing through almost 20 airports in Britain.

According to Amnesty International, which says that 800 secret CIA
flights for "extraordinary renditions" had been made in European air
space since September 2001, Abu Omar was flown from Italy to Egypt
in February 2003 on a CIA-leased plane which then returned to Shannon
in Ireland.

Ms Rice, the US Secretary of State, responded to a written British
request on behalf of the EU for clarification about the "ghost flights"
by attaching a copy of her statement issued on Monday in Washington,
in which she said that the US did not condone torture and had acted
in co-operation with governments.