[News] Renditions - Secret CIA flight plans reveal how European authorities were duped

Anti-Imperialist News news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Oct 12 10:55:14 EDT 2011


Secret CIA flight plans reveal how European authorities were duped

New documents exposing well-disguised CIA flights 
through Europe demonstrate the need for more 
robust inquiries into EU states’ complicity in 
the CIA’s secret prisons programme, according to legal action charity Reprieve.

Data focusing on Lithuania, but linked to 
suspected CIA activity in a raft of other 
countries in Europe, North America, the Middle 
East and North Africa, has been identified by 
Reprieve investigators and passed to the Lithuanian prosecutor.

Reprieve is now calling on the Lithuanian 
authorities to re-open their investigation into 
CIA renditions and secret prisons on their own 
soil, and to probe the newly-discovered web of 
suspicious flight links to other countries.

The new documents show that:
    * Lithuania’s attempts to establish what the 
CIA did in the country between 2004-06 have been 
oddly unsuccessful, failing to identify key clues 
to several potential rendition flights
    * Two flights entered Lithuania from Morocco 
and Bucharest – known secret prison sites – in 
February 2005, around the time that ‘High Value 
Detainee’ Abu Zubaydah was transferred to a CIA black site in Lithuania
    * A crucial plane identified by the previous 
Lithuanian inquiry (registered as N787WH) tried 
to disguise its true destination (Lithuania) by 
filing a route plan to Gothenburg, Sweden
    * Many other European  countries now linked 
to the CIA’s rendition flight programme have 
questions to answer, including Austria, Canada, 
Germany, Iceland, Jordan, Portugal, Romania and the USA
In a letter to Lithuania’s Deputy Prosecutor 
General, Darius Raulušaitis, Reprieve’s Director, 
Clive Stafford Smith said: “Compelling new 
information that has now come to light about the 
landings of CIA-connected planes in Lithuania 
makes a rigorous and wide-ranging investigation 
all the more urgent. It is now clear that 
previous efforts to chart the extent of the CIA’s 
rendition operations in Europe revealed ONLY the tip of the iceberg.”

Lydia Medland of Access Info Europe said: “Once 
information about violations of human rights has 
come to light through compliance with the 
public’s right to know, government have an 
obligation both to act on this information and to 
ensure that they release all other related documents.”


ENDS

Notes to editors

1. 
Documents<http://reprieve.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d176b31fc0ccbde9f3f3a6349&id=03b59cf499&e=f8755a10f3> 
recently released by 
<http://reprieve.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d176b31fc0ccbde9f3f3a6349&id=b663e57c73&e=f8755a10f3>Reprieve 
show how US-based conglomerate, Computer Sciences 
Corporation (CSC), contracted a Richmor Aviation 
plane, N85VM, to perform renditions and other 
government missions on behalf of the CIA between 
2002 and 2005. Confidential documents in 
possession of Reprieve show that the same 
corporation contracted two other jets in February 
2005 to fly into Lithuania from two other known 
secret prison sites: Morocco and Bucharest. The 
flight plans of each plane included multiple 
stop-offs, and multiple possibilities for 
disguising the true provenance and purpose of the 
flights. The arrival of these planes in Lithuania 
was confirmed by a freedom of information request 
made jointly by Reprieve and Access Info Europe.

2. The planes flew into Lithuania within 24 hours 
of each other in February 2005 – significant 
timing in the light of public source accounts 
stating that “high value detainee” Abu Zubaydah 
was moved from Morocco to Lithuania around this time.

3. Records collected by a previous Lithuanian 
inquiry showed that a plane registered as N787WH 
flew from Bucharest, Romania to Lithuania on 18 
February 2005. Documents obtained by Reprieve and 
the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights show 
that this plane disguised its true destination by 
filing a route plan to Gothenburg, Sweden. 
Furthermore, it has yet to be disclosed where 
this plane stopped prior to Bucharest; in 
particular, the question arises as to whether it 
shared some of the same stop-off points as 
N724CL, which landed in Lithuania en route from Morocco on the previous day.

4. Freedom of Information replies from 
<http://reprieve.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d176b31fc0ccbde9f3f3a6349&id=2de8f7d028&e=f8755a10f3>the 
Lithuanian Civil Aviation Authority, showing the 
landings of N724CL and N787WH in Lithuania; 
<http://reprieve.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=d176b31fc0ccbde9f3f3a6349&id=fe328ff31a&e=f8755a10f3>from 
Vilnius Airport, confirming the landing of N724CL 
in Vilnius; and 
<http://reprieve.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d176b31fc0ccbde9f3f3a6349&id=a2eac7ca84&e=f8755a10f3>from 
the Polish civil aviation authority showing the 
overflight permission for N787WH and its 
disguised route plan (to Gothenburg) are available on Reprieve's website.


Reprieve logo
Reprieve
PO Box 52742
London EC4P 4WS
Tel: 020 7353 4640
Fax: 020 7353 4641
Website: 
<http://reprieve.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d176b31fc0ccbde9f3f3a6349&id=bdf31a5b4e&e=f8755a10f3>www.reprieve.org.uk

Reprieve is a charitable company limited by 
guarantee; Registered Charity No. 1114900 
Registered Company No. 5777831 (England) 
Registered Office 2-6 Cannon Street London EC4M 
6YH; Chair: Ken Macdonald QC; Patrons: Alan 
Bennett, Julie Christie, Martha Lane Fox, Gordon 
Roddick, Richard Rogers, Ruth Rogers, Jon Snow, 
Marina Warner, Vivienne Westwood





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