NYT: Secret Prisons in 2 Countries Held Qaeda Suspects, Report Says

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/world/europe/08prisons.html

June 8, 2007

Secret Prisons in 2 Countries Held Qaeda Suspects, Report Says

By STEPHEN GREY and DOREEN CARVAJAL

LONDON, June 7 -- Investigators have confirmed the existence of clandestine C.I.A. prisons in Romania and Poland housing leading members of Al Qaeda, contends a new report from the Council of Europe, the European human rights monitoring agency.

Dick Marty, the Swiss senator leading the inquiry, said in a recent interview that his conclusions were based on information from intelligence agents on both sides of the Atlantic, including members of the C.I.A. counterterrorism center. The report is to be released on Friday.

The report says the jails operated from 2003 to 2005. "Large numbers of people have been abducted from various locations across the world and transferred to countries where they have been persecuted and where it is known that torture is common practice," it says.

These suspects included Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed master planner for the Sept. 11 attacks; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a member of the Hamburg, Germany, cell that organized the conspiracy; and Abu Zubaida, believed to have been a senior figure in Al Qaeda.

The report says that some of the information comes from trusted intelligence agents, who reported directly to former President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland and to two former Romanian leaders, Ion Iliescu and Traian Basescu.

The governments of Poland and Romania have denied the existence of such prisons, and officials could not be reached for comment on Thursday. Poland has criticized Mr. Marty and his investigators in the past for not traveling there to investigate the compound that the report describes as a prison.

The current president, Lech Kaczynski, has said that since he came to power in December 2005 "there has been no secret prison -- I am 100 percent sure of it," adding, "I am assured there never were any in the past either."

Romania has repeatedly denied the presence of a secret prison there.

But last year, President Bush acknowledged for the first time that terrorism suspects had been held in C.I.A.-run prisons overseas, without specifying where.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said Thursday that, "While I've yet to see the report, Europe has been the source of grossly inaccurate allegations about the C.I.A. and counterterrorism," and he added, "People should remember that Europeans have benefited from the agency's bold, lawful work to disrupt terrorist plots."

The report contends, "What was previously just a set of allegations is now proven." An advance copy of the report was obtained by the British Channel 4 program "Dispatches" and provided to The New York Times.

Apart from the statements of what his report describes as former and serving intelligence agents, Mr. Marty quotes aviation records that he suggests provide detailed evidence of clandestine visits by C.I.A. planes to Szymany, in Poland; as well as the text of confidential military agreements signed between the United States and Romania that, he suggests, allowed the establishment of a C.I.A. base in the country.

Mr. Marty said the C.I.A.'s partners in establishing the secret prisons were the military intelligence agencies of both countries, which reported only to their presidents and defense ministers. Neither the countries' prime ministers nor the two Parliaments' intelligence committees were consulted or informed.

Prisoners in the secret jails were subjected to sleep deprivation and water-boarding, or simulated drowning, said Mr. Marty, who also said that the two jails had been divided into two categories.

The main C.I.A. jail was centered in a Soviet-era military compound at Stare Kjekuty, in northeastern Poland, where about a dozen high-level terrorism suspects were jailed, the report concludes. Lower-level prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq were held in a military base near the Black Sea in Romania, the report contends.

Jails were staffed entirely by the C.I.A., and local guards secured the perimeters, the report says. "The local authorities were not supposed to be aware of the exact number or the identities of the prisoners who passed through the facilities -- this was information that they did not 'need to know,' " the report said.

Mr. Marty said last month in an interview with the Swiss newspaper La Liberte that the report relied on information from disaffected C.I.A. agents and other intelligence officials on the other side of the Atlantic. Many of the agents said they were surprised that the prisons remained a secret for so many years. "They spoke to me because they found what was happening to be disgusting," he was quoted as saying.

The report includes more specific conclusions than a study issued in June last year that contended that at least 14 European countries had accepted secret transfers of terrorism suspects by the United States. That report listed a web of landing points around the world that it said had been used by American authorities for its air network.

The new report contends that the C.I.A. took extraordinary measures to cover its activities. When C.I.A. jets flew to the Szymany airport in Poland, they used flight plans with "fictitious routes," it says, giving no indication that the airport was the destination. Polish air traffic controllers -- working with military intelligence -- completed the cover-up, the report says.

Although the report singled out Poland and Romania, it said that it could not rule out the possibility that other European countries permitted these jails to operate.

Among its accusations, this report said NATO agreements, under the guise of waging a "war on terror," provided the framework that the C.I.A. used to expand its European operations after Sept. 11.

The Marty report says it would be pointless for researchers to visit the Polish compound because "we have no doubts about the capability of those who would have removed any traces of the prisoner's presence."

Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington.