Parliament set for CIA showdown

By Judith Crosbie

Date: 08/06/06

Members of the European Parliament's temporary committee investigating CIA activity in Europe will vote on Monday (12 June) on whether to endorse the committee's findings so far and allow the inquiry to continue for another six months.

The next phase will see the committee try to find out whether illegal detention centres have existed in Europe and will also involve committee members travelling to Poland and Romania. It is these two countries which Claudio Fava, the Italian MEP who drafts the committee's report, believes may operate CIA "black sites". "We have no evidence but there are a lot of voices and not only journalists but also voices from inside the country," Fava said ahead of the vote in Strasbourg.

The next phase will also see European governments questioned on alleged activity on their territory.

The committee's interim report will include information gathered during recent trips to Washington and Skopje, Macedonia. The report will criticise the explanation by the Macedonian authorities of what happened to German citizen Khaled el-Masri when he arrived in the country in January 2004. Fava contends explanations that he was kept in a hotel room for 23 days but free to leave are open to question. He also takes issue with claims that el-Masri left the country via the Kosovo border and was not flown to Afghanistan on a rendition flight, as el-Masri has said.

The report will also include information on 1,084 flights leaving and arriving at European airports which Fava believes were operated by the CIA. "These flights are outside normal routes," he explains. "There are flights from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay but going through Romania, Bulgaria and Morocco first."

Monday's vote will come just days after a report into the same matter by the Council of Europe, which accused 14 European countries (Poland, Romania, Sweden, Italy, the UK, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ger-many, Macedonia, Turkey, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Portugal and Greece) of colluding with the CIA in rendition flights.

Article anticipates a vote at the European Parliament's temporary committee investigating CIA activity in Europe, scheduled for 12 June 2006, on whether to endorse the Committee's findings so far and allow the inquiry to continue for another six months.