Council of Europe Confirms Secret CIA Prisons

On June 8, the Council of Europe released a report confirming allegations first made by Human Rights Watch in 2005 that the CIA used locations in Poland and Romania for the secret detention of terror suspects. During several years of research, we combed through flight records and other documents, and assembled accounts from former detainees to expose the existence of the secret program. In response to our revelations, which Poland and Romania contested, the council’s Parliamentary Assembly launched an investigation. Its June report corroborates and expands upon our findings, providing a comprehensive account of illegal CIA operations in Europe and condemning European governments’ complicity in US abuses. After sustained international criticism, US President George Bush admitted the existence of secret CIA prisons in September 2006, and said he had emptied the centers. We remain concerned, however, that the program has not been fully dismantled. In April, the US government announced the transfer of an Iraqi national from CIA custody to Guantanamo, confirming that CIA detention continues. More recently, Human Rights Watch and five other groups published a list of 39 people believed to have been held in secret US custody whose whereabouts are still unknown. We will continue to press the United States to stop using secret detention, and to compel European governments to acknowledge their complicity in the program and prevent further abuses.