CIA TRIED TO SILENCE EU ON TORTURE FLIGHTS
Richard Norton-Taylor

The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/)
Thursday October 26, 2006

Germany offered access to prisoner in Morocco if it quelled opposition

The CIA tried to persuade Germany to silence EU protests about the
human rights record of one of America's key allies in its clandestine
torture flights programme, the Guardian can reveal.

According to a secret intelligence report, the CIA offered to let
Germany have access to one of its citizens, an al-Qaida suspect being
held in a Moroccan cell. But the US secret agents demanded that in
return, Berlin should cooperate and "avert pressure from EU" over
human rights abuses in the north African country. The report describes
Morocco as a "valuable partner in the fight against terrorism".

The classified documents prepared for the German parliament last
February make clear that Berlin did eventually get to see the detained
suspect, who was arrested in Morocco in 2002 as an alleged organiser
of the September 11 strikes.

He was flown from Morocco to Syria on another rendition flight. Syria
offered access to the prisoner on the condition that charges were
dropped against Syrian intelligence agents in Germany accused of
threatening Syrian dissidents.

Germany dropped the charges, but denied any link.

After the CIA offered a deal to Germany, EU countries adopted an almost
universal policy of downplaying criticism of human rights records in
countries where terrorist suspects have been held. They have also
sidestepped questions about secret CIA flights partly because of
growing evidence of their complicity.

The disclosure is among fresh revelations about how the CIA flew
terrorist suspects to locations where they were tortured, and Britain's
knowledge of the practice known as "secret rendition". They are
contained in Ghost Plane, by Stephen Grey, the journalist who first
revealed details of secret CIA flights in the Guardian a year ago. More
than 200 CIA flights have passed through Britain, records show.

He describes how one CIA pilot told him that Prestwick airport,
near Glasgow, was a popular destination for refuelling stops and
layovers. "It's an 'ask-no-questions' type of place and you don't
need to give them any advance warning you're coming," the pilot said.

The CIA used planes of Air America, a group of private companies
it secretly owned, and a second company, Aero Contractors. A
CIA Gulfstream V jet, frequently used for the secret rendition of
prisoners, flew to Diego Garcia, the British Indian Ocean territory
where the US has a large base, the book says.

Grey plans to publish more than 3,000 logs of the CIA flights on the
internet this week.

CIA pilots, sometimes using false identities and whose planes regularly
passed through Britain, ran up huge bills in luxury hotels after flying
terrorist suspects to secret locations where they were tortured. But
they revealed their whereabouts and identities by indiscreet use of
mobile phones and allowed outsiders to track their aircraft's flights.

On one occasion, CIA pilots and crew lived it up in Majorca after
rendering Benyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian brought up in Notting Hill,
west London, to Afghanistan where he was tortured. Benyam was detained
in Pakistan early in 2002, and then flown to Morocco, where he says
he suffered appalling torture. He is being held at Guantanamo Bay.

Benyam has said in a statement to his lawyer that he was tortured
for more than two years after being questioned by US and British
officials. He says that while in Morocco he was shown photos of people
he knew from a west London mosque, and was asked about information
he was told was supplied by MI5.

The government has consistently denied it has ever actively cooperated
in the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" programme". The Foreign Office
said yesterday that the government had "not approved and will not
approve a policy of facilitating transfer of individuals through the
UK to places where there are substantial grounds to believe they face
a real risk of torture".