EU probe to quiz US officials over CIA claims

MEPs are ready to go to Washington to quiz officials and intelligence agencies over claims that the US has run secret detention camps or “torture” flights.

The European parliament has set up a special committee to investigate allegations of CIA human rights violations in EU countries.

The MEPs will ask if the CIA carried out abductions, "extraordinary rendition" or torture on European soil or in countries set for EU membership.

UK socialist Claude Moraes MEP is on the committee and he is adamant the investigation will have more clout than an ongoing inquiry carried out by the non-EU council of Europe.

“We have more political depth because ours is being conducted by elected politicians. This will help us attract greater level of investigative and journalistic interest,” Moraes told EUpolitix.com.

The committee hopes a focus on specific CIA allegations will prevent it from diluting debate with wider questions over Europe’s war on terror.

MEPs are expected to head to Washington in an attempt to call officials from the US State Department to account.

But while parliamentary committees can request witnesses’ presence, MEPs are unable to compel officials to hand over information.

“We will request for US witnesses from the State Department and intelligence services. Of course we don’t know if they will cooperate with our inquiry yet. It is a possibility that we will not get them, but I have a feeling it will have more clout than people think,” Moraes argues.

“And we know even if we don’t get the intelligence we want, we have the power to agitate and we are willing to do just that. If prominent witnesses continually refuse to appear before the parliamentary committee, there is a greater embarrassment factor in our inquiry.” 

The committee’s 46 members were appointed on Wednesday under the chairmanship of centre-right Portuguese and Greek MEPs Carlos Coelho and Georgios Dimitrakopoulos.

Moraes believes the parliamentary committee will force European governments to open up about what they knew.

“The issue is that if there is no investigation member states can continue to deal with this issue by saying its secret or that they knew nothing about it. What matters is that we find evidence.”

But the council of Europe is already carrying out an investigation and critics argue that the European Parliament missed the boat by forming a committee after the human right’s body got its work underway.

We started after the council of Europe because of the bureaucracy element,” Moraes insists. “It was harder to deal with the politic sensitivities of this - some MEPs don’t want an inquiry and some hope it doesn’t come out with answers, so it took us longer to get off the ground.”

The parliamentary committee says it will produce its first report in four months time - a politically sensitive question for Romania.

The committee’s report will follow hot on the heels of a formal European commission decision on Romania’s entry to the EU.

Bucharest knows questions over its involvement in the CIA allegations will be under the spotlight and will be thankful for the leeway provided by the EU's decision to deal with its entry question first.

Dick Marty, the Swiss senator who is leading the Council of Europe inquiry is set to conclude his probe on January 23.

• Previous article
• Next article