EU Accuses Members Of Allowing CIA Kidnaps

The European Parliament approved a report Wednesday accusing Britain, Germany, Italy and other European nations of turning a blind eye to CIA flights transporting terror suspects to secret prisons overseas in an apparent breach of EU human rights standards.

The report, concluding a yearlong investigation into CIA activities in Europe, gives no direct proof that the U.S. intelligence agency ran secret prisons in Europe — an allegation that prompted the inquiry in November 2005 — but it accuses some EU governments of complicity with the U.S. secret renditions program. The report passed 382-256, with 74 abstentions.

Socialist and Liberal lawmakers argued that the report, based on the findings of a special parliamentary committee, exposed a string of abductions by U.S. agents after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, and proved insufficient parliamentary oversight of European security services.

"This is a report that doesn't allow anyone to look the other way. We must be vigilant that what has been happening in the past five years may never happen again," said Italian Socialist Giovanni Fava, who drafted the report.

But center-right lawmakers warned it accuses governments of colluding with the CIA detention program without sufficient proof, and demanded significant changes to the wording. Some of the criticism contained in the original draft was toned down, but that was not enough to win unequivocal support across parties.

"The report strongly implies that countries in Europe have been massively involved in extraordinary rendition activities and illegal detention. That is... not a faithful interpretation of fact," said Jas Gawronski, Italian conservative of the European People's Party, which largely voted against.

Criticism of Britain for allegedly not cooperating with the investigation was removed from the report at the insistence of British Labour Party deputies, and the final wording is also softer on the German government, largely thanks to pressure from German Social Democrats.

But objections to a testimony by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana remained, with the Parliament accusing the EU's top diplomat of makings "omissions" in his statement to the committee.

This prompted an angry reaction from current EU president Germany, which insisted the Council of EU Ministers — the EU's decision-making body — had cooperated well with the inquiry.

"I have to reject attacks on Solana out of hand because we have offered cooperation that was within his means," German Deputy Foreign Minister Guenther Gloser said on behalf of the EU member states. Germany holds the six-month rotating presidency of the 27-nation bloc.

A threat of sanctions against EU nations found to have violated civil liberties by housing a secret jail or helping to secretly transfer terror suspects to countries where they could face torture was dropped, but the legislators demanded proper inquiries in the 14 EU countries implicated in the report. Some of the nations have launched or completed investigations into CIA activities.

The 76-page parliamentary report is based on information from confidential sources — including records of meetings between EU, NATO and senior U.S. State Department officials — and testimony by individuals who said they were kidnapped by U.S. agents on Europe soil and transferred to secret prisons.

It also includes data from Eurocontrol, the EU's air safety agency, which has recorded more than 1,200 undeclared CIA flights through European airspace since Sept. 11, 2001 — flights the committee said were against international air-traffic rules.

The report offers circumstantial evidence indicating terror suspects were on some of those flights.

No EU governments have admitted that the alleged anti-terror operations were carried out on their soil. Human Rights Watch identified Poland and Romania as possible locations of secret prisons, but both countries denied involvement.

In September, U.S. President George W. Bush acknowledged that terrorism suspects have been held in CIA-run prisons overseas, but did not say where. Britain's government later said it had known "in general terms" about a secret CIA prison network.