European states urged to come clean on CIA jails

[Judi Lynn]

European states urged to come clean on CIA jails
Thu Sep 7, 2006 12:55pm ET

By Darren Ennis

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - European lawmakers demanded on Thursday that their governments reveal the location of secret CIA prisons after U.S. President George Bush admitted Washington held terrorist suspects in jails abroad.

Bush said on Wednesday the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had interrogated dozens of suspects at undisclosed overseas locations and the last 14 of those held had been sent to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. But top administration officials said the jail program would stay open.

EU member Poland and candidate country Romania, accused of hosting secret CIA detention centers by an investigator for Europe's chief human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, issued fresh denials, but EU lawmakers were not satisfied.

"The location of these prison camps must be made public," said German lawmaker Wolfgang Kreissl-Doerfler, a member of a European Parliament committee investigating the allegations.
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http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-09-07T165545Z_01_L06706440_RTRUKOC_0_US-EU-USA-CIA.xml&archived=False

[no_hypocrisy]

1. And lose all that secret funding by the CIA?! I don't think so . . .

[Solly Mack]

2. Time to write the EU

http://europa.eu/index_en.htm

[IChing]

3. Some quotes from major EU members from the article

EU lawmakers are set to travel to Bulgaria and Romania as well as Britain and Germany, as part of their investigations,

British EU parliamentarian Sarah Ludford said.
"Bush exposes not only his own previous lies. He also exposes to ridicule those arrogant government leaders in Europe who dismissed as unfounded our fears about extraordinary rendition," she said.

Lawmaker Wolfgang Kreissl-Doerfler, a member of a European Parliament committee investigating the allegations.
"We need to know if there has been any complicity in illegal acts," he added.



EU counterterrorism coordinator Gijs de Vries hoped Bush's disclosure would be a first step to finally shutting Guantanamo, "which has diminished America's moral authority in the world and provided a stumbling block in winning hearts and minds".


Of signs the United States plans to keep running the CIA jail program, he told a news briefing in Brussels: "Detention without trial is illegal. It is like torture."

[IChing]

4. These are strong statements that says there was a crime

European leaders are saying the US has committed a war crime.