EU parliament condemns CIA flights

STRASBOURG - The European parliament has accused EU governments of colluding with the CIA on secret flights carrying alleged terror suspects.

The report on CIA activities in Europe, written by Italian socialist MEP Claudio Fava, was adopted with 382 votes in favour and 256 against.

It follows a year-long investigation involving hearings with 170 people and trips to several EU countries.
 
The paper says the CIA operated over 1200 flights in EU airspace after 2001 to move terrorism suspects to countries where they could face torture, and accuses 14 EU countries of being stopovers for suspicious CIA flight and turning a “blind eye” to the practice.

The UK, Germany and Italy come in for the strongest criticism.

The report calls for an “independent inquiry” in order to unearth the full truth on so-called “extraordinary rendition”, where terror suspects are illegally detained and tortured.

But the vote stirred up a storm of controversy in Strasbourg, with the centre-right EPP group opposing the report on the basis that it did not present hard evidence to back its allegations.

A whopping 300 amendments, mostly tabled by the EPP and PES groups, ensured that many of the most controversial articles were dropped altogether.

Deletions include articles implicating commission president José Manuel Barroso, and a call for diplomatic sanctions against governments found guilty of breaching human rights.

Several governments also put pressure on MEPs to tone down the criticism – an article accusing the UK of not cooperating with the investigation was removed on the insistence of British Labour MEPs, and the final wording also leaves Germany off the hook.

Rapporteur Fava still applauded the result of the vote, arguing that “a very important page of history was written” with the adoption of the report.

“We have opened a door, and I do not think we can close it now,” he said.

“We have to make sure that what has happened never happens again,” Fava argued. “The EU should not be the backyard of US intelligence.”

He also rejected suggestions that MEPs had caved in to pressure from EU governments.

“Certain governments put pressure on us and we did not heed them,” he said. “The other institutions should be as independent and as consistent as the European parliament.”

The members of the temporary committee in charge of the investigation said the commission was cooperative, but accused the council of EU ministers, as well as several governments including Poland, of withholding facts and refusing to cooperate.

Portuguese MEP Carlos Coelho, who chaired the temporary committee, said the council “did not cooperate, lied to the parliament, and only supplied fragments of the real documents”.

Speaking during the lively debate in plenary, EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini endorsed the report.

“I continue to hope that there will be a huge vote in favour of the report to encourage the member states to do their duty and to change the rules for the future,” he said.

“The most important message to be derived from this is that security and respect for individual rights are very important,” he said.

But Frattini said he “contemptuously rejected the baseless accusation made against Barroso” – one of the clauses which was eventually dropped.

The vote was welcomed by MEPs from the greens and the GUE group.

But Dutch Green MEP Kathalijne Buitenweg added that the report “must not be the end of the parliament's involvement in this issue”.

“The ball is now in the court of the member states but the parliament must be vigilant and ensure that its recommendations are acted on,” she said.

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