Probe of CIA prisons implicates EU nations

By JAN SLIVA, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 7, 11:09 PM ET

PARIS - Fourteen European nations colluded with U.S. intelligence in a "spider's web" of human rights abuses to help the CIA spirit terror suspects to illegal detention facilities, a European investigator said Wednesday.

Swiss senator Dick Marty's report to Europe's top human rights body was thin on evidence but raises the possibility of a cover-up involving both friends and critics of Washington's war on terror. It says European governments "did not seem particularly eager to establish" the facts.

The 67-page report, addressed to the 46 Council of Europe member states, will likely be used by the rights watchdog to pressure countries to investigate their suspected role in U.S. rendition flights carrying terror suspects.

Marty's claims triggered a wave of angry denials but also accusations that governments are stonewalling attempts to confront Europe's role in the flights.

"This report exposes the myth that European governments had no knowledge of, or involvement in, rendition and secret detentions," said lawmaker Michael Moore, foreign affairs spokesman for Britain's second opposition party, the Liberal Democrats.

In the strongest allegations so far, Marty said evidence suggests planes linked to the CIA carrying terror suspects stopped in Romania and Poland and likely dropped off detainees there, backing up earlier news reports that identified the two countries as possible sites of clandestine detention centers.

Officials in Romania and Poland vigorously denied the accusations. >>>cont