By STEPHEN GREY and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO, New York Times
Published: July 6, 2006
MILAN, July 5 — Two officials with the Italian intelligence agency were arrested Wednesday in the kidnapping of a radical Egyptian cleric here in 2003. It was the first indication that Italian intelligence agents might have been directly involved in what prosecutors say was an American-led operation to detain and interrogate the imam.
Prosecutors also sought the arrest of three operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency and an employee of the American military airbase at Aviano, Italy. Last year, Italian prosecutors charged 22 other Americans, who were employed by or linked to the C.I.A., with involvement in the abduction of the cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr.
The government said it would “collaborate fully” with the investigation and expressed its “trust in the institutional loyalty” of the secret services. In the past, the government has denied any knowledge of or involvement in the kidnapping.
Italy Arrests 2 in Kidnapping of Imam in '03
UK aided CIA with torture flights, says official report
Stephen Grey
Wednesday June 7, 2006The Guardian
An inquiry by Europe’s leading human rights watchdog will today name 14 countries which are involved in or complicit in the CIA’s programme of detaining terrorism suspects for transfer to countries where they may be tortured.
After a seven-month investigation, Dick Marty, chairman of the Council of Europe’s committee on legal affairs and human rights, will accuse Washington of adopting a legal approach which is “utterly alien to the European tradition” by organising the so-called extraordinary rendition of dozens of suspects.
In his report, which has been obtained by the Guardian in advance of its publication in Paris, Mr Marty accuses the UK of not only offering logistical support to the CIA operation but also providing information that was used during the torture of a terrorism suspect in Morocco.
Mr Marty, a Swiss senator and former state prosecutor, describes the involvement of the 14 European states as varying from providing staging points for CIA operations or stop-over airports for its jets, to exchanging information with the United States that has led to renditions or torture, to allowing the rendition of terrorist suspects from their soil. (more…)
MI5 enabled UK pair's 'rendition'
Eight UK residents are thought to be held at Guantanamo BayTelegrams sent by the British security service led to the “extraordinary rendition” of two UK residents now in Guantanamo Bay, BBC News has learned.
Flight details sent to US authorities allowed Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil al-Banna to be arrested in Gambia.
The UK government has always said it opposes “extraordinary rendition” – secret flights taking terror suspects for interrogation in other countries.
The Foreign Office denies requesting the men’s detention.
Mr al-Rawi and Mr al-Banna were arrested at Gatwick airport in November 2002, BBC2′s Newsnight has learned.
British intelligence then sent US authorities a telegram saying one of them had been carrying an object that could have been used as part of an improvised explosive device.
The men were later released after MI5 found the device to be an innocent battery charger – but this time the US authorities were not informed. (more…)
Amnesty Award
Peter Wilby comments on it at http://www.newstatesman.com/People/200510030005
The original article is now reposted below on this site.
Spain Looks Into C.I.A.'s Handling of Detainees
November 14, 2005, New York Times
By STEPHEN GREY and RENWICK McLEAN
LONDON, Nov. 11 – On the Spanish island of Majorca, the police quietly opened a criminal investigation in March after a local newspaper reported a series of visits to the island’s international airport by planes known to regularly operate for the Central Intelligence Agency. Now, it has emerged that an investigative judge in Palma has ordered the police inquiry to be sent to Spain’s national court, to consider whether the C.I.A. was routing planes carrying terrorism suspects through Majorca as part of its so-called rendition program. Under that system, the United States has bypassed normal extradition procedures to secretly transfer at least 100 suspects to third countries where, according to allegations by human rights groups and former detainees themselves, some of the suspects have been tortured. The program is the focus of a number of European investigations. Spain is the third country in Europe to open a judicial inquiry into potential criminal offenses committed by C.I.A. operatives related to renditions. The other two are Germany and Italy. Last week, related investigations were started by the European Union and the Council of Europe to look into reports of secret C.I.A. jails for terrorism suspects in Eastern Europe.
Suspect's tale of travel and torture
Alleged bomb plotter claims two and a half years of interrogation under US and UK supervision in ‘ghost prisons’ abroad
Stephen Grey and Ian Cobain
Tuesday August 2, 2005
The Guardian
A former London schoolboy accused of being a dedicated al-Qaida terrorist has given the first full account of the interrogation and alleged torture endured by so-called ghost detainees held at secret prisons around the world.
For two and a half years US authorities moved Benyam Mohammed around a series of prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, before he was sent to Guantánamo Bay in September last year.
Mohammed, 26, who grew up in Notting Hill in west London, is alleged to be a key figure in terrorist plots intended to cause far greater loss of life than the suicide bombers of 7/7. One allegation, which he denies, is of planning to detonate a “dirty bomb” in a US city; another is that he and an accomplice planned to collapse a number of apartment blocks by renting ground-floor flats to seal, fill with gas from cooking appliances, and blow up with timed detonators.
In an statement given to his newly appointed lawyer, Mohammed has given an account of how he was tortured for more than two years after being questioned by US and British officials who he believes were from the FBI and MI6. As well as being beaten and subjected to loud music for long periods, he claims his genitals were sliced with scalpels. (more…)
C.I.A. Expanding Terror Battle Under Guise of Charter Flights
By Scott Shane, Stephen Grey and Margot Williams
c. The New York Times
Tuesday 31 May 2005
Smithfield, NC – The airplanes of Aero Contractors Ltd. take off from Johnston County Airport here, then disappear over the scrub pines and fields of tobacco and sweet potatoes. Nothing about the sleepy Southern setting hints of foreign intrigue. Nothing gives away the fact that Aero’s pilots are the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism, routinely sent on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul.
When the Central Intelligence Agency wants to grab a suspected member of Al Qaeda overseas and deliver him to interrogators in another country, an Aero Contractors plane often does the job. If agency experts need to fly overseas in a hurry after the capture of a prized prisoner, a plane will depart Johnston County and stop at Dulles Airport outside Washington to pick up the C.I.A. team on the way.
…. (continues)
(Full text of original NYT article….
mirrors include..http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/053105Y.shtml )
Thirteen With the C.I.A. Sought by Italy in a Kidnapping
By STEPHEN GREY and DON VAN NATTA, New York Times
Published: June 25, 2005 (read full text)
MILAN, June 24 – An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 officers and operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency on charges that they seized an Egyptian cleric on a Milan street two years ago and flew him to Egypt for questioning, Italian prosecutors and investigators said Friday.
The judge, Chiara Nobili of Milan, signed the arrest warrants on Wednesday for 13 C.I.A. operatives who are suspected of seizing an imam named Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, as he walked to his mosque here for noon prayers on Feb. 17, 2003.
It is unclear what prompted the issuance of the warrants, but Judge Guido Salvini said in May that it was “certain” that Mr. Nasr had been seized by “people belonging to foreign intelligence networks interested in interrogating him and neutralizing him, to then hand him over to Egyptian authorities.” (more…)
BBC File on Four : Extraordinary rendition.
A former CIA official has confirmed suspicions that dozens of terror suspects have been flown to jails in Middle Eastern countries where torture is routinely practised, and without reference to courts of law.
Michael Scheuer, who once headed the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and left the CIA last November after a 22-year career, said the practice, known as “extraordinary rendition”, was seen by the US as a key tactic in its war on terror.
“The bottom line is getting anyone off the streets who is involved in acts of terrorism is a worthwhile activity,” he told the BBC’s File On 4 programme.
Details of the program, first broadcast on BBC radio on February 8th, are at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/file_on_4/4246089.stm
A full transcript is now on the BBC website at
this address ..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_02_05_renditions.pdf
US accused of ‘torture flights’
first published in the Sunday times, November 14, 2004
by Stephen Grey
AN executive jet is being used by the American intelligence agencies to fly terrorist suspects to countries that routinely use torture in their prisons.
The movements of the Gulfstream 5 leased by agents from the United States defence department and the CIA are detailed in confidential logs obtained by The Sunday Times which cover more than 300 flights.
Countries with poor human rights records to which the Americans have delivered prisoners include Egypt, Syria and Uzbekistan, according to the files. The logs have prompted allegations from critics that the agency is using such regimes to carry out “torture by proxy” — a charge denied by the American government. (more…)
