'Torture flight' in city landing claim

Published on Friday 24 August 2007 12:12

A CIA "torture flight" aeroplane which regularly visited Guantanamo Bay landed at Edinburgh Airport on its way from Afghanistan to the United States, according to a new report.

The civil rights charity Reprieve said it had evidence which showed one of the planes at the centre of the controversial "rendition" flights stopped in the Capital - and also highlighted a second "suspicious" landing.

The refuelling stopover was made on a flight from Kabul to Washington on November 25, 2002, at the height of the Afghanistan war.

Reprieve has spent two years compiling evidence about the so-called torture flights, which are said to have taken prisoners from conflict spots to the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. Its report, based mainly on aeroplane companies' flight logs and prisoners' testimonies, identifies more than 100 suspect flights that landed in Scotland.

It is believed the flight which landed in Edinburgh is more likely to have been carrying CIA interogators home to the United States rather than transporting prisoners.

The aircraft involved - the N85VM Gulfstream IV - is said by Reprieve to have flown to Guantanamo Bay on at least 51 occasions between June 2002 and January 2005.

The second "suspicious" flight landed at Edinburgh on May 13, 2005, when a plane from Reykjavik stopped off in the Capital on its way to Frankfurt.

Reprieve believes this flight was part of a longer journey from Afghanistan to the United States.

The two flights are said by the charity to be the tip of the iceberg, with numerous more untraced rendition flights probably having stopped in the Capital.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said he will pass on the information in the report to the Lord Advocate after being presented with the charity's dossier yesterday.

Mr MacAskill said: "This Government has made absolutely clear our opposition to illegal rendition flights and also how seriously we take allegations regarding attempting to commit torture being committed here.

"There are clear laws in Scotland that have to be upheld.

"Attempts to commit torture are crimes under Scots law and it is for the police to investigate allegations of such offences and for the procurator fiscal to decide whether to bring proceedings."

Clive Stafford Smith, legal director for Reprieve, said: "There is extremely serious evidence of systematic cover-up of transfers to torture, and nothing has been done to prevent this happening again in the future.

"Enforced disappearance, illegal transfer and the torture of prisoners raise the most serious moral concerns and issues under international law.

"Scottish airports have played central roles in facilitating the secret CIA programme, which has involved the torture and abuse of an unknown number of individuals, many of whom have since simply disappeared."

A Foreign Office spokesman said:

"There is no evidence to suggest renditions have been conducted through the UK without our permission or in contravention of UK or international law."

Edinburgh Airport declined to comment on the matter.