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Corporations collaborated in CIA 'black site', claim lawyers

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 21.06.2012 08:58
A London-based human rights organisation has accused corporations of profiting from the CIA's alleged deportation of US political prisoners to a secret 'black site' in Poland.

Stare
Stare Kiejkuty: photo - scx.hu/whirlybird

The Reprieve NGO is international lawyers claims that Palestinian Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and has been granted victim status in Poland's ongoing investigation into the alleged secret CIA probe, was first transported to Thailand.

There he allegedly “became the guinea pig for the CIA's 'enhanced interrogation' programme,” or, as human rights groups argue, torture.

The Reprieve NGO states that after “several months of torture”, Abu Zubaydah and another prisoner, Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri – who has also been granted victim status in Poland's investigation – were transported to a CIA “black site “ near Stare Kiejkuty, northern Poland.

Reprieve claims that a private military contractor, DynCorp Systems and Solutions, “arranged the trip for the US government as a cost of 330,000 dollars,”(1.1 million zloty).

The human rights group identifies Gulfstream jet N63MU, operated by First Flight / Airborne Inc., as the aircraft that flew the round-trip from Washington DC, picking up the prisoners at Bangkok, and then flying “via Dubai to the remote Szymany airfield in Poland, before returning via London Luton.”

Reprieve also alleges that trip-planners Universal Weather and Aviation “arranged logistics for the trip.”

According to the group, the evidence collected shows how the US Government “relied on contractors for 'technically complex, mission-critical challenges' - such as transporting prisoners between secret locations, hidden from the spotlight of law.”

Polish probe continues

A prosecutor's office in the southern Polish city of Krakow is handling the investigation into the existence of an alleged "black site" in Poland.

Leszek Miller was prime minister of Poland at the time of the alleged detentions, at the head of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) government.

He has repeatedly denied the existence of such a site, which is alleged to have been located in a villa near the Stare Kiejkuty military base in north east Poland.

Former president Aleksander Kwasniewski has also made several denials regarding the existence of the site.

However, in May this year, he appeared to suggest that there was more to the allegations than he initially

“Of course everything went on behind my back,” he told Polish paper Gazeta Wyborcza.

Reprieve argues that “ten years on, many of these prisoners [Abu Zubaydah among them] have still not been charged with any crime, and many of these companies are still in business.” (nh)

tags: cia prisons
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