CIA prison in Poland? No comment, says White House

White House: photo: Wikipedia / Cezary p / lic. CC

Speaking to a small group of foreign correspondents in Washington on Wednesday, vice-national security adviser Ben Rhodes refused to comment on revelations by the Washington Post last week that the CIA handed over 15 million dollars in cash to Polish intelligence officers in Warsaw as part of a deal to set up a CIA detention centre where al-Qaeda suspects were held and tortured in 2002 and 2003.

"I would not like to comment on what is happening in Poland. This is something that concerns the Polish government and Polish justice. Poland has been and remains a close partner of the US in the fight against terrorism, but it is clear that today, in 2014, that we are in a completely different place than we were immediately after the attacks of 11 September," he said.

Investigators called for a six-month extension into the long-running Polish investigation into the allegations, first made in 2005 by Human Rights Watch, that Poland had allowed CIA operatives to operate a secret 'black site' in the north east of the country.

Prosecutors were to report on 11 February but due to a lack of assistance from the United States, among other factors, the investigators called on Attorney General Andrzej Seremet to extend the deadline to 11 June.

Obama in Poland?

Security adviser Rhodes would also not comment on whether Barack Obama would accept an invitation to attend anniversary celebrations this summer of the partially-free elections of June 1989 in Poland, which brought to an end four decades of communism.

"The anniversary of the election is very important. I think that Americans were inspired by the democratic transformation and the role played by Poland in the fight for freedom in Eastern Europe," Rhodes said, declining to add whether Obama would be attending the celebrations in Warsaw.

He recalled accompanying President Obama on his visit to Poland in 2011.

"Poland is our devoted ally in Afghanistan and on security issues," he said. (pg)

source: PAP