Europeans Shame US on Secret Prisons
Last week was a good week for accountability — in Europe. The government of Poland and the European Parliament both took major steps towards holding European officials responsible for supporting the CIA’s illegal rendition to torture program. - In Poland the former Head of Polish Intelligence, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, revealed that he had been charged with “unlawfully depriving prisoners of the their liberty” because of the alleged role he played in helping to establish a CIA secret prison in Stare Klejkuty, north-eastern Poland, in 2002-2003. Meanwhile across the continent in Brussels the European Parliament announced that two parliamentary committees would come together to issue a new report on EU complicity in the US-led secret detentions and renditions program. The European Parliament last reported on this issue in 2007 and in the intervening period there has been a cascade of new information regarding covert CIA operations in Italy, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland and Romania, amongst many other states.