By Daisy Ayliffe - 8th May 2006
Most CIA flights transiting Europe were not carrying terrorist detainees, Washington has declared.
Hitting back at European allegations that the US outsources torture, a top state official said allegations of wrong doing are undermining international cooperation.
“We do not outsource torture,” John Bellinger, the state department’s senior legal adviser told reporters on Tuesday.
“There have not been thousands of flights. There have been a very few cases of rendition. The suggestion that that there have been large numbers or that this allegedly large number of flights had detainees on them is simply absurd.”
The European parliament probe into allegations of "extraordinary rendition" charges the US intelligence agency with kidnapping terror suspects.
“The CIA has, on several occasions, clearly been responsible for kidnapping and illegally detaining alleged terrorists on the territory of member states, as well as for extraordinary renditions," Italian MEP Giovanni Fava said in his interim report on the issue.
The rapporteur made specific reference to several alleged abductions, including the kidnap of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar in Milan in 2003.
Italian authorities were highly likely to have known the details of Abu Omar's case, he declared.
“It is difficult to imagine the authorities in the member states where this was going on, were not informed,” Fava claims.
But the US insists that ending the practice of “rendition” would lead to terror suspects being freed to roam the world.
“Is it better to have the person returned to the country of their nationality or to a country in which they’re wanted? That is the reason why a rendition may be a useful tool in fighting terrorists,” Bellinger hit back.
“Many of these flights that have occurred may simply be carrying analysts for intelligence agencies to cooperate with one another, or other officials who are engaged in counterterrorism cooperation.”
He added that Washington had “thought very seriously about trying to deny the individual allegations because so many were wrong,” but ultimately concluded that “it is simply not possible to get into the business of confirming or denying specifics.”
MEPs from the temporary committee on alleged CIA activities are in Washington this week to meet representatives of the US administration and members of congress.
The committee will announce its findings at press conferences on May 11 in Washington and May 16 in Strasbourg.
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