Swiss Intelligence Confirms CIA Blacksites

by | Apr 29, 2007 | Stress Blog | 6 comments

From No Comment, ‘the other’ Scott Horton has this little blurb of info:

A Swiss court has acquitted three Swiss journalists on charges of violating state secrecy requirements for publishing an intelligence intercept of the Swiss intelligence service that confirmed the existence of a CIA ‘blacksite’ detention facility at the Mihail Kogalniceanu Base near the Black Sea city of Constanza in Romania. Swiss intelligence put 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens at the base and in the custody of the CIA. It states that Romania had made false official statements to European Parliamentary investigators in which the base was denied. It notes the existence of similar ‘blacksites’ at the Szymany Air Base in Poland, in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.

The transportation of Iraqi civilians captured in connection with U.S. military operations in Iraq to a location outside of that country would be a criminal act under article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Reports circulated earlier that such a program existed and that it had been approved by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, headed by Jack Goldsmith, now a professor at Harvard University. A copy of a memo purporting to authorize the transportation of Iraqis out of the country by the CIA, dated March 19, 2004, was obtained and published by the Washington Post on October 24, 2004. The memo has been uniformly condemned by legal scholars, some of whom have suggested that the author might be subject to criminal prosecution.

umm… what was that about torture, Mr. Tenet? yeah, and I’m sure you know nothing about Africa’s own little Gitmo‘ either, huh? Lucky for you the 911 Whitewash Commission didn’t want to talk to Michael Ross. I bet he has plenty of interesting stories on the run-up to 911 having to do with the conduct your agency. Oh well, more filler for the memory hole…