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Britiain helped cia kidnappers Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/08/wcia08.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/06/08/ixnews.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/08/wcia08.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/06/08/ixnews.html
Britain 'helped CIA kidnappers'
By David Rennie in Brussels
(Filed: 08/06/2006)
Britain was named yesterday as one of 14 European nations that allegedly helped the Central Intelligence Agency abduct and secretly transport terrorist suspects to countries where they faced torture.
The accusations came in a report by a former Swiss prosecutor for the Council of Europe, which monitors human rights in 46 European nations.
Tony Blair denied the collusion allegations and said the report, by the Swiss senator Dick Marty, contained no fresh evidence.
Mr Blair told MPs during Prime Minister's Questions: "I have to say the Council of Europe report has absolutely nothing new in it."
In Washington, a spokesman for the State Department described the report as a disappointing "re-hash".
The report focused on the cases of 17 people who say they were unlawfully taken into detention by US authorities - some of whom have since been released.
Mr Marty said he found correlations in the stories of many of the detainees, who described being stripped by teams of balaclava-wearing men, blindfolded, placed in adult nappies, boilersuits and manacles, before being flown into detention.
The report said British intelligence and security services provided tip-offs, personal information and interrogators to a global "spider's web" created by the CIA after the September 11 attacks.
It said data provided by European air traffic control logs offered the strongest evidence yet - if not proof - that the CIA network included secret prisons in Poland and Romania, staging points where teams gathered for operations, and refuelling stops used by CIA aircraft, including Prestwick airport in Scotland.
The Foreign Office has said that since 1998, Britain agreed to two US requests involving so-called "renditions" - in which a suspect is secretly transported to face criminal proceedings in another country - and refused two others. But the Council of Europe report focused on the question of "extraordinary renditions".
This is when terrorist suspects are moved around the world without legal process, for interrogation in US-run facilities from Afghanistan to Cuba, or sent for harsh questioning, often in the Arab world.
Mr Marty said several countries let the CIA abduct their residents, while others allowed the agency to use their airspace. "European governments simply agreed not to want to see," he said.
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