Europe's governments 'knew of CIA torture flights'

EUROPEAN governments knew that so-called CIA "torture flights", some of which landed in Edinburgh, were taking place, investigators said today.

The head of a European investigation into the transportation of terrorist suspects also said that evidence pointed to the existence of a system of "outsourcing" of torture by the US and that it was highly likely that European governments knew of it.

But Swiss senator Dick Marty said there was no formal evidence so far of the existence of clandestine detention centres in Romania or Poland as alleged by the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Mr Marty's comments follow accusations fired at the Scottish Executive that it knew about torture flights landing at Edinburgh and other Scottish international airports.

The SNP said the Executive had turned a blind eye to the situation and published pictures of alleged CIA planes at Edinburgh Airport. The party also compiled a dossier which lists in detail the planes and the dates on which they landed while allegedly operating for front companies of the CIA.

Today Mr Marty said: "There is a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of 'relocation' or 'outsourcing' of torture."

In a report presented to the Council of Europe, the human rights watchdog on whose behalf he is investigating, he added: "Acts of torture or severe violation of detainees' dignity through the administration of inhuman or degrading treatment are carried outside national territory and beyond the authority of national intelligence services."

The report said that extraordinary rendition - transferring terror suspects to countries where they may face torture or ill treatment - "seems to have concerned more than a hundred persons in recent years".

"It is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware," it said.

Makes and registration numbers of planes at Edinburgh, Prestwick and Glasgow have been detailed in the SNP dossier.

The US has confirmed that a number of flights carrying terror suspects have taken place across the world under a process known as extraordinary rendition but has rejected prisoner abuse claims.

The SNP says its report, which lists ten firms, allegedly CIA shell companies, had been compiled by a senior aviation expert.

The dossier shows A Raytheon Hawker 800XP plane operated by Wells Fargo Bank Northwest, with registration N168BF, pictured at Edinburgh on June 20 last year.

And another plane, a CASA with registration N187D, is pictured parked at Edinburgh Airport on August 25. The plane, operated by North Carolina firm Devon Holding & Leasing, was believed to be en route from Seville, but had operated from Kabul for the first half of 2005 before its trip north.

In his investigation, Mr Marty analysed the cases of an Egyptian cleric allegedly kidnapped from Milan, Italy, in 2003 by CIA agents and a German captured in Macedonia and taken to Afghanistan in an apparent case of mistaken identity.

Citing an American lawyer, Marty also said six Bosnians were abducted by American agents on Bosnian soil and taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, despite a Bosnia judgement ordering their release. Last week, Italy's justice minister formally asked the US to allow Italian prosecutors to question 22 purported CIA operatives they accuse of kidnapping the Egyptian cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, in 2003 from a Milan street.

Nasr, believed to belong to an Islamic terror group, was seized on February 17, 2003.

Prosecutors claim the cleric, who is also known as Abu Omar, was taken by the CIA to a joint US-Italian air base, flown to Germany and then to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.

Mr Marty also said he would follow up on evidence gathered in the case of Khaled al Masri, a German of Lebanese origin reportedly kidnapped from Germany to Afghanistan, in the next stage of his investigation.

The Council of Europe launched its probe after allegations surfaced in November that US agents interrogated key al-Qaida suspects at clandestine prisons in eastern Europe and transported some suspects to other countries passing through Europe.