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Report of cia secret prisons eastern europe Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/11/02/afx2314090.htmlhttp://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/11/02/afx2314090.html
AFX News Limited
CIA declines comment on report of secret prisons in Europe, elsewhere
11.02.2005, 10:40 AM
WASHINGTON (AFX) - The US Central Intelligence Agency has declined to comment on a newspaper report that said the US spy agency has been hiding and interrogating alleged Al-Qaeda captives at secret prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.
The prisons, known as 'black sites,' are, or have been, located in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and 'several democracies in eastern Europe', the daily Washington Post said, quoting US and foreign officials familiar with the system.
Asked about the report published today, a CIA spokeswoman replied: 'We decline to comment.'
The names of the Eastern European countries were withheld by the Post 'at the request of senior US officials', who argued that the disclosure might disrupt counter terrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere.
The CIA has sent more than 100 suspects to the hidden global internment network, the daily reported, indicating that the number was a rough estimate and did not include prisoners picked up from Iraq.
About 30 of the detainees, considered major terrorism suspects, have been held at black sites financed and managed by the CIA in Eastern Europe and elsewhere -- two locations in Thailand and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were closed in 2003 and 2004, the daily said.
More than 70 other less important detainees -- with less direct involvement in terrorism and having limited intelligence value, some of whom were originally interned at black sites -- have been delivered to intelligence services in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan and other countries, the daily added.
The US State Department has issued human rights reports accusing Egypt, Jordan and Morocco of abusing prisoners.
The CIA and the White House have dissuaded the US Congress from asking questions in open testimony about the facilities or their conditions, the paper said.
'Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long,' the Washington Post said.
The covert prison system is 'known only to a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country', said the newspaper, which pieced together the 'contours' of the CIA detention programme over the past two years.
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