Road to Poland's Szczytno Airport, from which it
seems beyond
doubt that ‘renditioned’ detainees
were
brought to a secret
'extraterritorial' prison run by the CIA, where they were subjected
to ‘enhanced interrogation
techniques,’ also known as ‘torture.’
Mystery Unfolds of Poland’s ‘Extraterritorial’ CIA Prison (GazetaWyborcza, Poland)
“The Americans
just laughed at the agreement put before them to sign, because they didn't want
to leave traces of violations of international law and their own constitution.
They took us for amateurs and explained that such issues aren’t addressed in formal
agreements. … It even has an item on what to do if any of the people detained
there die.”
-- Unnamed informant on
secret deal to allow CIA prison in Poland
By Agnieszka Kublik, WojciechCzuchnowski and Adam Krzykowski
“The Americans just laughed at the agreement put before them
to sign, because they didn't want to leave traces of violations of
international law and their own constitution. They took us for amateurs and
explained that such issues aren’t addressed in formal agreements,” our informant
says. Then he adds: “This can now be used as a defense by Polish bureaucrats: ‘the
agreement was not signed, so it did not apply.’”
We’re talking about a document created at the end of 2001-beginning
of 2002. It was after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when the United
States, with the support of its allies (Poland and Britain, among others), marched
into Afghanistan to overturn the government of the Taliban, which had sheltered
and supported the terrorists of al-Qaeda.
Poland, in addition to providing military support, worked
with the U.S. on issues of intelligence. Within the framework of that cooperation,
the Polish side agreed to allow CIA aircraft to land at the Szczytno-Szymany
International Airport and to permit the detention of terror suspects on the
grounds of the AgencjaWywiadu Intelligence
Agency Training Center in Stare Kiejkuty [Polish
Intelligence training center].
A top secret investigation into the “Polish CIA prison” is now
under way. Since 2008, it has been conducted by the Appellate Prosecutor’s
Office in Warsaw. Last January, the Prosecutor General decided to move it to Krakow. According to the
Prosecutor General's spokesman, the cause of the change was “to benefit the
investigation.” The rest remains a mystery.
The investigation was transferred to Krakow shortly after the
indictment of ZbigniewSiemiątkowski, an Democratic Left Alliance politician who in 2001-2004 was head
of AgencjaWywiadu.
He is charged with “exceeding his authority” by helping organize an
exterritorial center in which CIA detained its captives.
In 2006, when initial reports about “CIA prisons” on
European territory appeared in the American press, the government of Poland,
among those of other countries, denied the veracity of these reports. The
investigation was initiated only after two years went by. It had been stalled.
Last April GazetaWyborcza
and producers of the Panorama program at TVP2 both reported that a
breakthrough came after Polish intelligence gave the prosecution materials
related to its cooperation with the CIA. Among them is the above-mentioned
agreement between Polish and U.S. intelligence services.
What do we know about it? According to our sources in the Prosecutor’s
Office, it deals with details about the activities carried out at Stare Kiejkuty training center. According to our source, “It even
has an item on what to do if any of the people detained there die.”
The agreement, drafted in both languages, was prepared by
the Polish side. It is signed by ZbigniewSiemiątkowski and has a note “CC to Prime Minister”
(who was then Leszek Miller). There is also a space
for the head of the CIA, which remains empty.
“This is a problem now, because on the one hand, the
agreement is a strong piece of evidence; but on the other, since it hasn’t been
signed by the other side, it is not legally binding,” our interlocutor explains.
Another, former Polish intelligence officer adds: “In this situation, it was idiotic
to archive such a document. It should have been quietly tossed into the
shredder long ago.”
But according to Adam Bodnar of
the Helsinki Foundation, which monitors the issue of CIA prisoners in Poland,
the lack of signature on the document does not nullify its probative value. The
fact that such a document was prepared proves there was the will to proceed and
that the people who read it knew of its contents. The fact that in the end,
these things were likely arranged informally does not matter,” says Bodnar.
ZbigniewSiemiątkowski
won’t even comment on the matter. “Everything related to the work of intelligence
is covered by [the law] on state secrecy. I would be the last person to break
it,” he told GazetaWyborcza.
GazetaWyborcza:
“Is an agreement with your signature but not signed by the Americans legally binding?”
Siemiątkowski:” If my
signature is there, that means that the agreement is secret and I can’t talk
about it. But to be clear: I do not confirm the existence of such an agreement.”
Former European Parliament MP and now a senator from the Citizen's
Platform, JózefPinior,
calls for thorough airing of the issue, has long maintained that reliable
sources had informed him of a document confirming the existence of a secret CIA
base on our territory.
“It was a very detailed outline of how such a facility
should be run from the point of view of Polish government institutions.
According to the document, although the center was to be run by the CIA, on the
Polish side, the coordination of its activities was the responsibility of
civilian intelligence, under the authority of the prime minister. The military
was shut out. Until this day, I have not been able to tell whether Polish authorities knew what the Americans were doing there, or is
without giving it much though, agreed to its extraterritorial status and gave them
a free hand.”
Posted by Worldmeets.US
As we reported in May, Polish intelligence officers who were
assigned to a secret CIA base at the Stare Kiejkuty
training center wrote memos after each oral report made to the president or
prime minister. Today, This material is also in the
hands of the Polish prosecutor leading the investigation.
According to Helsinki Foundation estimates, between eight and
eleven prisoners were kept at Stare Kiejkuty. In the
Polish investigation, two of them, both Saudis, Abd
al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed
Abdu al-Nashiri and Zayna
al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, have
been assigned the status of “victims.”
And both now sit at the American base at Guantanamo. They
claim to have been imprisoned and tortured in Poland.
