Some European countries colluded with the CIA in renditions

It is interesting that quite a few of the delegates voted against the report. The report simply sets out what is already common knowledge. It is interesting though that it concludes that many countries actually colluded with the CIA.



European countries helped the CIA move terror suspects: report
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 | 12:46 PM ET
CBC News
The European Parliament approved a report on Wednesday that accuses 14 European governments of allowing the U.S. to remove and transfer suspected extremists to CIA secret prisons.

The report says the countries, including Britain, Germany and Italy, turned a blind eye when the CIA forcibly removed suspects from their soil and put them on secret flights to countries where they could be tortured.

According to the report, the CIA operated more than 1,200 flights into or over European countries for four years after the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

A majority of members of the European Parliament, the parliamentary body of the European Union, approved the report. A total of 382 were in favour, while 256 were against, and 74 abstained.

"This is a report that doesn't allow anyone to look the other way," Italian Socialist Giovanni Fava, who drafted the report, said Wednesday.

"We must be vigilant that what has been happening in the past five years may never happen again."

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The report offers no actual proof that the CIA operated secret prisons in Europe, but says the European countries named in the report were complicit with the U.S. secret renditions program.

Socialist and Liberal legislators argued that the report provides evidence of several abductions by CIA agents and shows that European security services helped and concealed CIA activities in Europe.

Centre-right legislators, meanwhile, said the report provides no actual proof that the CIA renditions program exists and they insisted that the criticism in the report be toned down.

The report, based on a year-long investigation, was amended before it received approval. It is less critical in its final form.

According to a report by BBC News, the report defines extraordinary renditions as cases in which "an individual suspected of involvement in terrorism is illegally abducted, arrested and/or transferred into the custody of U.S. officials and/or transported to another country for interrogation which, in the majority of cases involves incommunicado detention and torture."

Members of the parliament are elected by EU citizens once every five years. The report carries no weight in EU law.