STRASBOURG: EU lawmakers on Monday approved a report by a special committee condemning what it called mounting evidence of U.S. human rights abuses, and accused the CIA of using fictitious airlines to transfer terror suspects to countries where they could be tortured. The European Parliament s six-month inquiry into reports of CIA secret prisons and flights in Europe found that detainees were transferred to countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Afghanistan. The report was approved by 25 votes against 14, with seven abstentions, a week after Swiss senator Dick Marty, investigating the allegations on behalf of the Council of Europe, concluded that 14 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. Marty said evidence suggests planes linked to the CIA carrying terror suspects stopped in Romania and Poland and likely dropped off detainees there. The report by EU parliamentarians stays clear of accusing any European country of harboring secret CIA prisons, but otherwise drew similar conclusions. The report makes it clear that illegal activities, including rendition of prisoners in the war on terror, took place inside the EU. But it also makes it clear that further investigation is needed, said Dutch legislator Jan Marinus Wiersma, vice president of the Socialist Group in the EU assembly. In April, the lawmakers said the CIA had conducted more than 1,000 clandestine flights in Europe since 2001, some of them secretly taking away terror suspects. They said European governments likely knew about the flights. Legislators selected to look into news reports of CIA activities in Europe said flight data showed a pattern of hidden operations by U.S. agents. Cases of terror suspects being secretly handed over to U.S. agents did not appear to be isolated, the lawmakers said. European human rights treaties prohibit sending suspects to states known to torture prisoners. The lawmakers based their initial report on data provided by Eurocontrol, the EU s air safety agency, and more than 50 hours of testimony by EU officials, rights groups and individuals who said they were kidnapped and tortured by U.S. agents. AP
