By Justin Wastnage in London
Europe's human rights watchdog has issued its most stinging criticism to date on the "extraordinary rendition flights" carried out by US intelligence agencies through various European countries' airspace. The Council of Europe, a 46-member non-legislative organisation aimed at promoting democracy and human rights, also published a map showing the extent of "verified" flights, compiled with details provided by aviation enthusiasts across Europe.
Dick Marty, a senator in Switzerland's parliament, presented a report based on seven months' research on behalf of the Council of Europe. In it he called on European countries to review their bilateral agreements with the USA to strengthen existing restrictions on flights where passengers could be faced with torture at the destination. Marty presented his report into alleged "secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers" by member states of the Council of Europe to its legal affairs committee yesterday in Paris.
The committee says the USA has "progressively woven a clandestine spider’s web of disappearances, secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers" and says this web was spun with the collaboration or tolerance of Council of Europe member states.
The role of most European states was to permit unlawful “extraordinary rendition flights," through their airspace or stopping over in their territory. The committee says: “Unlawful inter-state transfers involving European countries have taken place [and] require in-depth inquiries and urgent responses by all the countries concerned.”
Airports in Greece, the Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and the UK were used as stop-over points for flights between the USA, the Middle East and the Caribbean. The Council based its map of flights (pictured in part below) from data compiled by human rights pressure group Amnesty International, which was originally supplied from the log books of a network of aviation enthusiasts, or planespotters situated at airports.
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The Council of Europe restricted its map to those flights it was able to independently verify through published flight plans of six aircraft allegedly chartered by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) between September 2001 and September of 2005. The aircraft include a Boeing 737-700 (N313P, later re-registered as N4476S); a Gulfstream V (N379P, N8068V, N44982); a Gulfstream III (N829MG, N259SK) and a Gulfstream IV (N85VM, N227SV). Enthusiasts noted these aircraft's movements in and out of European airports in this period.
The 46-member Council of Europe acts as a liasion organisation between the 25-member European Union and the continent's other countries and was set up to "defend human rights, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law".
The report is scheduled for debate during the full session of the 630-members-strong parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, taking place in Strasbourg on 27 June.
External links:
View the complete map of "unlawful inter-state transfer flights" passing through Council of Europe members states.
or read the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights' report into alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states.
Source: Flight International
