Paper trail of private CIA terrorist suspect flights revealed in court files

The CIA used a network of private aviation firms to airlift terror suspects to secret overseas prisons, newly disclosed court records have revealed.

More than 1,500 pages of legal documents detail how the United States government contracted out the transportation of people euphemistically described in a New York courtroom as “invitees” of the government.

The information gives an “unprecedented insight” into how the CIA outsourced the extraordinary rendition of detainees to private firms and then attempted to cover its tracks by means of a complicated paper trail, according to legal charity Reprieve.

Staff for the human rights organisation discovered the information in documents relating to a legal dispute between two aviation companies.

Included in the haul of legal filings, were invoices, receipts and court transcripts that exposes the extent to which private firms were integral to the CIA’s rendition of detainees.

Under the now defunct programme, terror suspects were picked up by operatives and flown to secret “black site” prisons around the world.

Detainees were often shackled, with hoods over their heads, during flights it has been claimed. Many were subjected to interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, at their destinations, it is alleged.

The prison network is no longer used by the CIA, former director Leon Panetta confirmed in 2009. Its existence was earlier acknowledged by then-president George W Bush.

In 2007, the Council of Europe said that around 1,245 CIA-operated flights had passed over the continent.

Flight itineraries provided to the New York court appear to relate to the arrest and transportation of key suspects sought in connection with the 11 September, 2001, attack on the US, including the alleged mastermind of the atrocity Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

Other details tally with the rendition of Abd al-Nashiri, the suspected planner of the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, and Hambali, the alleged Indonesian terrorist behind the bombing of a Bali nightclub in 2002.

The documents were filed as part of a four-year legal dispute between New York-based Richmor Aviation, and SportsFlight Air, a private firm that brokered flights for DynCorp, a major US government contractor.

Earlier this year, an appeals court upheld a decision in favour of Richmor, awarding it £540,000 to settle the bill for unpaid flights.

During court testimony, it emerged a Richmor jet was used for more than 55 CIA flights to Guantanamo Bay, Kabul, Cairo and Islamabad. It frequently went through European airports, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, after being dispatched to pick up a suspect, records show.

Cori Crider, legal director of Reprieve, said: “These documents give us an unprecedented insight into how the government outsourced renditions, right down to the complicated paper trail the CIA used to cover their tracks.”