http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/12/17/officials_say_cia_ran_secret_jail_in_cuba/Within the heavily guarded perimeters of the Defense Department's much-discussed Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, the CIA has maintained a detention facility for valuable Al Qaeda captives that has never been mentioned in public, according to military officials and several current and former intelligence officers.
The buildings used by the CIA are shrouded by high fences covered with thick green mesh plastic and ringed with floodlights, officials said. They sit within the larger Camp Echo complex, which was erected to house the Defense Department's high-value detainees and those awaiting military trials on terrorism charges.
The facility has housed detainees from Pakistan, West Africa, Yemen, and other countries under the strictest secrecy, the sources said. ''People are constantly leaving and coming," said one US official who visited the base in recent months. It is unclear whether the facility is still in operation today. The CIA and the Defense Department declined to comment.
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CIA detainees, by contrast, are held under separate rules and far greater secrecy. Under a presidential directive and authorities approved by administration lawyers, the CIA is allowed to capture and hold certain classes of suspects without accounting for them in any public way and without revealing the rules for their treatment. The roster of CIA prisoners is not public, but current and former US intelligence officials say the agency holds the most valuable Al Qaeda leaders and many mid-level members with knowledge of the group's logistics, financing, and regional operations.
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