CIA black sites refer to the black sites that are controlled by the CIA and used by the U.S. government in its

War on Terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...

to detain

enemy combatants Enemy combatant is a person who, either lawfully or unlawfully, engages in hostilities for the other side in an armed conflict. Usually enemy combatants are members of the armed forces of the state with which another state is at war. In the case ...

. US President George W. Bush acknowledged the existence of secret prisons operated by the CIA during a speech on September 6, 2006. A claim that the black sites existed was made by ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'' in November 2005 and before this by

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

NGOs. A

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

(EU) report adopted on February 14, 2007, by a majority of the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of the European Union, institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and in ...

(382

MEPs A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, it ...

voting in favor, 256 against and 74 abstaining) stated the CIA operated 1,245 flights and that it was not possible to contradict evidence or suggestions that secret

detention centers A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correcti ...

where prisoners have been tortured were operated in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

and

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. After denying the fact for years, Poland confirmed in 2014 that it has hosted black sites.

Official recognition

Black sites operated by the US government and its surrogates were first officially acknowledged by President George W. Bush in the fall of 2006. The

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

(ICRC) reported details of black site practices to the US government in early 2007, and the contents of that report became public in March 2009.

2006 President Bush announcement

On September 6, 2006, Bush publicly admitted the existence of secret prisons and announced that many of the detainees held there were being transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

2007 ICRC Report

The

(ICRC) prepared a report based on interviews with black site detainees, conducted October 6–11 and December 4–14, 2006, after their transfer to Guantanamo Bay. The report was submitted to Bush administration officials. On March 15, 2009,

Mark Danner Mark David Danner (born November 10, 1958) is an American writer, journalist, and educator. He is a former staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' and frequent contributor to ''The New York Review of Books''. Danner specializes in U.S. foreign affa ...

provided a report in the '' New York Review of Books'' (with an abridged version in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'') describing and commenting on the contents of the ICRC report. According to Danner, the report was marked "confidential" and was not previously made public before being made available to him. Danner provided excerpts of interviews with detainees, including Abu Zubaydah,

Walid bin Attash Walid Muhammad Salih bin Mubarak bin Attash ( ar, وليد محمد صالح بن مبارك بن عتش; born 1978) is a Yemeni prisoner held in extrajudicial detention at the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camp and is suspected of play ...

and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Danner also provided excerpts of the ICRC report characterizing procedures used at the black sites, dubbed "an alternative set of procedures" by President Bush, and discussed whether they fit the definition of torture.

Controversy over the legality and secrecy

Black sites are embroiled in controversy over the legal status of the detainees held there, the legal authority for the operation of the sites (including the collaboration between governments involved), and full (or even minimal) disclosure by the governments involved.

Legal status of detainees

An important aspect of black site operation is that the legal status of black site detainees is not clearly defined. In practice, inmates in black sites have no rights other than those given by the captors. The revelation of such black sites adds to the controversy surrounding US government policy regarding those whom it describes as " unlawful enemy combatants". Approximately 30 detainees are considered the most dangerous or important terrorism suspects and are held by the CIA at black sites under the most secretive arrangements. More than 70 other detainees who may have originally been sent to black sites, but were soon delivered by the CIA to intelligence agencies in allied Middle Eastern and Asian countries such as

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

, and

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

. A further 100

extraordinary rendition Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored forcible abduction in another jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States-led program used during the War on Terror, which had the purpos ...

". Marty also underlined that European countries probably had knowledge of these covert operations. Furthermore, the CIA apparently financially assists and directs the jails in these countries. While the US and host countries have signed the

United Nations Convention Against Torture The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (commonly known as the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT)) is an international human rights treaty under the review of the United Nation ...

, CIA officers are allowed to use what the agency calls "

enhanced interrogation techniques "Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" is a euphemism for the program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Ar ...

". These have been alleged to constitute "severe pain or suffering" under the UN convention, which would be a violation of the treaty and thus US law.

Legal authority for operation

There is little or no stated legal authority for the operation of black sites by the United States or the other countries believed to be involved. In fact, the specifics of the network of black sites remains controversial. The

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

has begun to intervene in this aspect of black sites. The fourteen European countries Marty listed as collaborators in "unlawful inter-state transfers" are Great Britain, Germany, the Isle of Man, Italy, Sweden, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Turkey, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Romania and Poland. Named airport bases include

Glasgow Prestwick Airport Glasgow Prestwick Airport () is an international airport serving the west of Scotland, situated northeast of the town of Prestwick in South Ayrshire and southwest of Glasgow. It is the less busy of the two airports serving the western part o ...

(Scotland), Shannon & Baldonnel (Ireland), Ramstein and

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

(Germany),

Aviano Air Base Aviano Air Base ( it, Base aerea di Aviano) is a base in northeastern Italy, in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. It is located in the Aviano municipality, at the foot of the Carnic Pre-Alps or Southern Carnic Alps, about from Pordenone. T ...

(Italy),

Palma de Mallorca Airport Palma de Mallorca Airport ( ca, Aeroport de Palma de Mallorca, es, link=no, Aeropuerto de Palma de Mallorca; ; also known as Son Sant Joan Airport or ''Aeroport de Son Sant Joan'') is an international airport located east of Palma, Mallorca, ...

(Spain),

Tuzla Air Base Tuzla Air Base was a military airport near Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. History Tuzla International was once the largest military airport of the former Yugoslavia. The 350th Reconnaissance Aviation Squadron was active there for a time. It was p ...

(Bosnia-Herzegovina),

Skopje Skopje ( , , ; mk, Скопје ; sq, Shkup) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC; r ...

(North Macedonia),

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

(Greece),

Larnaca Larnaca ( el, Λάρνακα ; tr, Larnaka) is a city on the south east coast of Cyprus and the capital of the district of the same name. It is the third-largest city in the country, after Nicosia and Limassol, with a metro population of ...

(Cyprus),

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

(Czech Republic),

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

(Sweden), as well as

Rabat Rabat (, also , ; ar, الرِّبَاط, er-Ribât; ber, ⵕⵕⴱⴰⵟ, ṛṛbaṭ) is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan populatio ...

(Morocco) and

Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques d ...

(Algeria). Polish Prime Minister

Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz (; born 20 December 1959) is a Polish conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of Poland from 31 October 2005 to 14 July 2006. He was a member of the Law and Justice party (''Prawo i Sprawiedliwość'', PiS). ...

characterized the accusation as "

libel Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defi ...

", while Romania similarly said there was no evidence. British Prime Minister

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of t ...

said that the report "added absolutely nothing new whatever to the information we have". Poland and Romania received the most direct accusals, as the report claims the evidence for these sites is "strong". The report cites airports in Timișoara, Romania, and Szymany, Poland, as "detainee transfer/drop-off point . Eight airports outside Europe are also cited. On May 19, 2006, the United Nations Committee Against Torture (the U.N. body that monitors compliance with the UN Convention Against Torture) recommended that the United States cease holding detainees in secret prisons and stop the practice of rendering prisoners to countries where they are likely to be tortured. The decision was made in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...

following two days of hearings at which a 26-member U.S. delegation defended the practices.

Public information about operation

The U.S. government does not provide information about the operation of black sites, and for a period of time did not provide information about the existence of black sites.

Representations by the Bush administration

Responding to the allegations about black sites, Secretary of State

Condoleezza Rice Condoleezza Rice ( ; born November 14, 1954) is an American diplomat and political scientist who is the current director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served as the 66th Un ...

stated on December 5, 2005 that the U.S. had not violated any country's sovereignty in the rendition of suspects, and that individuals were never rendered to countries where it was believed that they might be tortured. Some media sources have noted her comments do not exclude the possibility of covert prison sites operated with the knowledge of the "host" nation, or the possibility that promises by such "host" nations that they will refrain from torture may not be genuine. On September 6, 2006, Bush publicly admitted the existence of the secret prisons and that many of the detainees held there were being transferred to Guantanamo Bay. In December 2002, ''The Washington Post'' reported that "the capture of

al Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

leaders Ramzi bin al-Shibh in Pakistan,

Omar al-Faruq Omar al-Faruq ( ar, عمر الفاروق; 1969 – 25 September 2006), also spelled or al-Farouq or al-Farooq, born Mahmoud Ahmad Mohammed Ahmad, was an islamic militant with high profile connections with Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah in Sout ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to Iraq–Ku ...

and Muhammad al Darbi in

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and ...

were all partly the result of information gained during interrogations." The ''Post'' cited "U.S. intelligence and national security officials" in reporting this. On April 21, 2006, Mary O. McCarthy, a longtime CIA analyst, was fired for allegedly leaking

classified information Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to kn ...

to a ''Washington Post'' reporter, Dana Priest, who was awarded the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

for her revelations concerning the CIA's black sites. Some have speculated that the information allegedly leaked may have included information about the camps. McCarthy's lawyer, however, claimed that McCarthy "did not have access to the information she is accused of leaking". ''The Washington Post'' posited that McCarthy "had been probing allegations of criminal mistreatment by the CIA and its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan", and became convinced that "CIA people had lied" in a meeting with

US Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and po ...

staff in June 2005.Smith, R. Jeffrey (May 14, 2006)
"Fired Officer Believed CIA Lied to Congress"
''The Washington Post''. In a September 29, 2006, speech, Bush stated: "Once captured, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were taken into custody of the Central Intelligence Agency. The questioning of these and other suspected terrorists provided information that helped us protect the American people. They helped us break up a cell of Southeast Asian terrorist operatives that had been groomed for attacks inside the United States. They helped us disrupt an al Qaeda operation to develop

anthrax Anthrax is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Bacillus anthracis''. It can occur in four forms: skin, lungs, intestinal, and injection. Symptom onset occurs between one day and more than two months after the infection is contracted. The s ...

for terrorist attacks. They helped us stop a planned strike on a U.S. Marine camp in

Djibouti Djibouti, ar, جيبوتي ', french: link=no, Djibouti, so, Jabuuti officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red ...

, and to prevent a planned attack on the U.S. Consulate in

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former c ...

, and to foil a plot to hijack passenger planes and to fly them into

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...

and London's

Canary Wharf Canary Wharf is an area of London, England, located near the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Canary Wharf is defined by the Greater London Authority as being part of London's central business district, alongside Central Lon ...

." On July 20, 2007, Bush made an executive order banning torture of captives by intelligence officials. In a September 7, 2007, public address to the

Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is a nonprofit organization that is independent and nonpartisan. CFR is based in New York Ci ...

in New York, rare for a sitting Director of Central Intelligence, General Michael Hayden praised the program of detaining and interrogating prisoners, and credited it with providing 70 percent of the

National Intelligence Estimate National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) are United States federal government documents that are the authoritative assessment of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on intelligence related to a particular national security issue. NIEs are p ...

on the threat to America released in July. Hayden said the CIA has detained fewer than 100 people at secret facilities abroad since 2002, and even fewer prisoners have been secretly transferred to or from foreign governments. In a 20-minute question-and-answer session with the audience, Hayden disputed assertions that the CIA has used

waterboarding Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboard ...

, stress positions,

hypothermia Hypothermia is defined as a body core temperature below in humans. Symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia, there is shivering and mental confusion. In moderate hypothermia, shivering stops and confusion increases. In severe ...

and dogs to interrogate suspects—all techniques that have been broadly criticized. "That's a pretty good example of taking something to the darkest corner of the room and not reflective of what my agency does" Hayden told one person from a

organization.

Information derived from investigative reporting

The vast majority of information that has been provided to the public about black sites has been the result of investigative reporting. For full details, see the section below on the media and investigative history.

Specific facts surrounding sites

As discussed in the preceding section, many of the facts surrounding black sites remain controversial. The identity of detainees and the location of sites are known with varying degrees of certainty, though many facts have been discovered in substantial detail.

Detainees

The list of those thought to be held by the CIA includes suspected al-Qaeda members Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Abu Zubaydah. The total number of

ghost detainee Ghost detainee is a term used in the executive branch of the United States government to designate a person held in a detention center, whose identity has been hidden by keeping them unregistered and therefore anonymous.Dick Marty's memorandum on "alleged detention in Council of Europe states" stated that about 100 persons have been kidnapped by the CIA on European territory and subsequently rendered to countries where they may have been tortured. This number of 100 persons does not overlap, but adds itself to the U.S.-detained 100 ghost detainees. A number of the alleged detainees listed above were transferred to the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba in the fall of 2006. With this publicly announced act, the United States government ''de facto'' acknowledged the existence of secret prisons abroad in which these prisoners had been held.

Khaled el-Masri

Khalid El-Masri is a German citizen who was detained in Skopje, flown to Afghanistan, interrogated and tortured by the CIA for several months, and then released in remote

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and share ...

in May 2004 without having been charged with any offense. This was apparently due to a misunderstanding that arose concerning the similarity of the spelling of El-Masri's name with the spelling of suspected terrorist Khalid al-Masri. Germany had issued warrants for 13 people suspected to be involved with the abduction but dropped them in September 2007. On October 9, 2007, the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

declined without comment to hear an appeal of El-Masri's civil lawsuit against the United States ('' El-Masri v. Tenet''), letting stand an earlier verdict by a federal district court judge, which was upheld by the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maryland ...

. Those courts had agreed with the government that the case could not go forward without exposing

state secrets Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to know, ...

. In May 2007, Masri was committed to a psychiatric institution after he was arrested in the southern German city of Neu-Ulm on suspicion of arson. His attorney blamed his troubles on the CIA, saying the kidnapping and detention had left Masri a "psychological wreck".

Imam Rapito

The CIA abducted

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr ( ar, حسن مصطفى أسامة نصر ''Ḥassan Muṣṭafā Usāmah Naṣr'') (born 18 March 1963), also known as Abu Omar, is an Egyptian cleric. In 2003, he was living in Milan, Italy, from where he was kidnapped ...

(also known as Abu Omar) in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...

and transferred him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured and abused. Hassan Nasr was released by an Egyptian court—who considered his detention "unfounded"—in February 2007 and has not been indicted for any crime in Italy. Ultimately, 26 Americans (mostly suspected CIA agents) and nine Italians were indicted. On November 4, 2009, an Italian judge convicted ( ''in absentia'') 23 of the Americans, including a U.S. Air Force (USAF) colonel. Two of the Italians were also convicted in person.

Aafia Siddiqui

The defense for

Aafia Siddiqui Aafia Siddiqui ( ur, ; born 2 March 1972) is a Pakistani national who is serving an 86-year sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, United States for attempted murder and other felonies. Siddiqui was born in Pak ...

, who was tried in New York City, alleged that she was held and tortured in a secret US facility at Bagram for several years. She was allegedly detained for five years at Bagram with her children; she was the only female prisoner. She was known to the male detainees as "Prisoner 650." Aafia's case gained notoriety due to

Yvonne Ridley Yvonne Ridley (born 23 April 1958) is a British journalist, author and politician who holds several committee positions with the Alba Party in Scotland. She was a former chair of the National Council of the now-defunct Respect Party. Ridley ma ...

's allegations in her book, ''The Grey Lady of Bagram'', a ghostly female detainee, who kept prisoners awake "with her haunting sobs and piercing screams". In 2005 male prisoners were so agitated by her plight, Ridley said, that they went on

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...

for six days. Siddiqui's family maintains that she was abused at Bagram. The trial began in January 2010 and lasted 14 days, with the jury deliberating for three days before reaching a verdict. On February 3, 2010, she was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder, armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and three counts of assault on U.S. officers and employees. Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years in prison on September 23, 2010, following a hearing in which she testified.

Suspected sites

An estimated 50 prisons have been used to hold detainees in 28 countries, in addition to at least 25 more prisons in Afghanistan and 20 in Iraq. It is estimated that the U.S. has also used 17 ships as floating prisons since 2001, bringing the total estimated number of prisons operated by the U.S. and/or its allies to house alleged terrorist suspects since 2001 to more than 100. Countries that held suspects on behalf of the U.S. include Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Libya, Lithuania, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Zambia.

Asia

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

, the

Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the State media, state-owned news network and International broadcasting, international radio broadcaster of the United States, United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international br ...

relay station in Ban Dung District of Udon Thani Province was reported to be a CIA black site known as "Cat's Eye" or "Detention Site Green". Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has denied these reports. In May 2018, the BBC reported that the Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base was the location of the black site used to interrogate Abu Zubaydah, a 31-year-old Saudi-born Palestinian, believed to be one of

Osama Bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, his group is designated ...

's top lieutenants. In December 2014 the

United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (sometimes referred to as the Intelligence Committee or SSCI) is dedicated to overseeing the United States Intelligence Community—the agencies and bureaus of the federal government ...

(SSCI) published an executive summary of a secret 6,000-page report on CIA techniques. The report alleges that at least eight Thai senior officials knew of the secret site. The site was closed in December 2002. Thailand has denied the existence of the site while the US government has neither confirmed or denied its existence. In August 2018, the Royal Thai Army announced that another suspected Udon Thani black site, the former Ramasun Station, would be turned into a tourist attraction. The army rejected suspicions that the station had been used as a black site.

Middle East

In Afghanistan, the prison at Bagram Air Base was initially housed in an abandoned brickmaking factory outside

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into #Districts, 22 municipal dist ...

known as the " Salt Pit", but later moved to the base some time after a young Afghan died of hypothermia after being stripped naked and left chained to a floor. During this period, there were several incidents of torture and prisoner abuse, though they were related to non-secret prisoners, and not the CIA-operated portion of the prison. At some point prior to 2005, the prison was again relocated, this time to an unknown site. Metal containers at Bagram Air Base were reported to be black sites. Some Guantanamo Bay detainees report being tortured in a prison they called " the dark prison", also near Kabul. Also in Afghanistan, Jalalabad and Asadabad have been reported as suspected sites. In

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

Abu Ghraib Abu Ghraib (; ar, أبو غريب, ''Abū Ghurayb'') is a city in the Baghdad Governorate of Iraq, located just west of Baghdad's city center, or northwest of Baghdad International Airport. It has a population of 189,000 (2003). The old road ...

was disclosed as a black site, and in 2004 was the center of an extensive prisoner abuse scandal. Additionally, Camp Bucca (near Umm Qasr) and

Camp Cropper Camp Cropper was a holding facility for security detainees operated by the United States Army near Baghdad International Airport in Iraq. The facility was initially operated as a high-value detention site (HVD), but has since been expanded incre ...

(near the

Baghdad International Airport Baghdad International Airport , previously Saddam International Airport ( ar, مطار بغداد الدولي, Maṭār Baġdād ad-Dawaliyy) is Iraq's largest international airport, located in a suburb about west of downtown Baghdad in th ...

) were reported. The UAE runs secret prisons in

where prisoners are forcibly disappeared and tortured. A Geneva-based human rights group, SAM for Rights and Liberties called on the Emirati forces to close all its secret prisons being operated in Yemen. The group claimed that these secret detention facilities intentionally held prisoners, including political opponents, civilians, opinion-makers. In its 26 December 2020 video statement SAM cited one of its reports citing that the Saudi and UAE forces subjected the Yemeni detainees to “cruel forms of torture.” Mwatana for Human Rights reported on 11 April 2021 about the continued forceful detention of approximately 27 civilians at the Al Munawara Central Prison, Mukalla City,

by UAE authorities. Of the 27 detainees, 13 had been granted acquittal, 11 completed their full terms, and the cases of the remaining 3 were nullified by the court. The detainees have been imprisoned for more than a year despite the Hadhramout Specialized Criminal Court granting their release. As per the former detainees, survivors, and witnesses, Emirati forces operating in Yemen run illegal detention centers in the south of the country. Mwatana has also verified the torture of detainees at these Emirati-run secret detention centers where some have gone as far as committing suicide to protest against their unfair detention, as cited by one of the victim's brothers.

Africa

Some reported sites in Egypt,

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...

and Morocco, as well as

. The Temara interrogation centre, outside the Moroccan capital,

, is cited as one such site. On January 23, 2009, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' reported that the CIA ran a secret detention center in

Camp Lemonnier Camp Lemonnier is a United States Naval Expeditionary Base, situated next to Djibouti–Ambouli International Airport in Djibouti City, and home to the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) of the U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICO ...

, a former

French Foreign Legion The French Foreign Legion (french: Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army which comprises several specialties: infantry, cavalry, engineers, airborne troops. It was created in 1831 to allow foreign nationals into the French Army ...

base.

Indian Ocean

The U.S. Naval Base in Diego Garcia was reported to be a black site, but UK and U.S. officials initially attempted to suppress these reports. However, it has since been revealed by ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' magazine and a "senior American official" source that the isle was indeed used by the U.S. as a secret prison for "war on terror" detainees. In 2015, U.S. Secretary of State

Colin Powell Colin Luther Powell ( ; April 5, 1937 – October 18, 2021) was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first Africa ...

's former chief of staff,

Lawrence Wilkerson Lawrence B. Wilkerson (born June 15, 1945) is a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Since the end of his military career, Wilkerson has criticized many aspects of the Iraq W ...

, elaborated saying Diego Garcia was used by the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

for "nefarious activities". He said that he had heard from three U.S. intelligence sources that Diego Garcia was used as "a transit site where people were temporarily housed, let us say, and interrogated from time to time" and that "What I heard was more along the lines of using it as a transit location when perhaps other places were full or other places were deemed too dangerous or insecure, or unavailable at the moment". While the revelation was expected to cause considerable embarrassment for both governments, UK officials were expected to face considerable exposure since they had previously quelled public outcry over U.S. detainee abuse by falsely reassuring the public no U.S. detainment camps were housed on any UK bases or territories. The UK may also face liabilities over apparent violations of international treaties. On 21 February 2008, British Foreign Secretary

David Miliband David Wright Miliband (born 15 July 1965) is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the International Rescue Committee and a former British Labour Party politician. He was the Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010 and the Member of ...

admitted that two United States extraordinary rendition flights refuelled on Diego Garcia in 2002, and was "very sorry" that earlier denials were having to be corrected.

Europe

Several European countries (particularly the former

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

satellites and republics) have been accused of and have denied hosting black sites: the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''O ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

and

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

. Slovak ministry spokesman Richard Fides said the country had no black sites, but its intelligence service spokesman Vladimir Simko said he would not disclose any information about possible Slovak black sites to the media. EU Justice commissioner Franco Frattini has repeatedly asserted suspension of voting rights for any member state found to have hosted a CIA black site. The interior minister of Romania, Vasile Blaga, has assured the EU that the Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport was used only as a supply point for equipment, and never for detention, though there have been reports to the contrary. A fax intercepted by the Onyx Swiss interception system, from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to its London embassy, stated that 23 prisoners were clandestinely interrogated by the U.S. at the base. In 2007, it was disclosed by Dick Marty (investigator) that the CIA allegedly had secret prisons in Poland and Romania. On April 22, 2015, Ion Iliescu, former President of Romania, confirmed that he had granted a CIA request for a site in Romania, but was not aware of the nature of the site, describing it as a small gesture of goodwill to an ally in advance of Romania's eventual accession to NATO. Iliescu further stated that had he known of the intended use of the site, he would certainly not have approved the request. There are other reported sites in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...

, who denied hosting any such sites, and

North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...

. In June 2008, a ''New York Times'' article claimed, citing unnamed CIA officers, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was held in a secret facility in Poland near Szymany Airport, about north of

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

and it was there where he was interrogated and the waterboarding was applied. It is claimed that waterboarding was used about 100 times over a period of two weeks before Khalid Sheikh Mohammed began to cooperate. In September 2008, two anonymous Polish intelligence officers made the claims about facilities being located in Poland in the Polish daily newspaper '' Dziennik''. One of them stated that between 2002 and 2005 the CIA held terror suspects inside a military intelligence training base in Stare Kiejkuty in north-eastern Poland. The officer said only the CIA had access to the isolated zone, which was used because it was a secure site far from major towns and was close to a former military airport. Both Prime Minister

Leszek Miller Leszek Cezary Miller (Polish pronunciation: ; born 3 July 1946) is a Polish politician. He has served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since July 2019. From 1989 to 1990 was a member of the Politburo of the Polish United Workers' P ...

and President

Aleksander Kwasniewski Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

knew about the base, the newspaper reported. However, the officer said it was unlikely either man knew if the prisoners were being tortured because the Poles had no control over the Americans' activities. On January 23, 2009, ''The Guardian'' reported that the CIA had run black sites at Szymany Airport in Poland, Camp Eagle in

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and Pars pro toto#Geography, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of Southern Europe, south and southeast Euro ...

and Camp Bondsteel in

Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a international recognition of Kosovo, partiall ...

. The United States has refused to cooperate with a Polish investigation into the matter, according to the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. In November 2009, reports alleged a black site referred to in ''The Washington Post''s 2005 article had been located in

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

. A former riding school in Antaviliai, a village some from

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urba ...

, was said to have been converted into a jail by the CIA in 2004. The allegations resulted in a parliamentary inquiry, and Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė stated that she had "indirect suspicions" about a black site in her country. On December 22, 2009, the parliamentary commission finished its investigation and stated they found no proof that a black site had existed in Lithuania. Valdas Adamkus, a former president of Lithuania, said he is certain that no alleged terrorists were ever detained on Lithuanian territory. However, in a file submitted in September 2015 to the European Court of Human Rights, a lawyer for a Saudi-born Guantanamo detainee said the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture released in December 2014 leaves "no plausible room for doubt" that Lithuania was somehow involved in the Central Intelligence Agency programme. In January 2022, it was reported in a Washington Post article that a former black site has been put up for sale by the Lithuanian government. The former riding stable outside of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius consists of long corridors leading to windowless and soundproof rooms where “one could do whatever one wanted,” said current Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas, who led a parliamentary investigation into the facility in 2010. After the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, the president of Poland between 1995 and 2005, Alexander Kwasniewski, admitted that he had agreed to host a secret CIA black site in Poland, but that activities were to be carried out in accordance to Polish law. He said that a U.S. draft memorandum had stated that "people held in Poland are to be treated as prisoners of war and will be afforded all the rights they are entitled to", but due to time constraints the U.S. had not signed the memorandum.

Mobile sites

* U.S. warship – By definition as a U.S. military vessel, this is not a "black site" as defined above. However, it has been used by the United States military as a temporary initial interrogation site (after which prisoners are then transferred to other facilities, possibly including black sites). ** N221SG a

Learjet 35 The Learjet Model 35 and Model 36 are a series of American multi-role business jets and military transport aircraft manufactured by Learjet. When used by the United States Air Force they carry the designation C-21A. The aircraft are powered by ...

** N44982 a

Gulfstream V The Gulfstream V (Model GV, pronounced "G-five") is a long-range, large business jet aircraft produced by Gulfstream Aerospace, derived from the previous Gulfstream IV. It flies up to , up to and has a range. It typically accommodates four c ...

(also known as N379P) ** N8068V a Gulfstream V ** N4476S a

Boeing Business Jet Boeing Business Jets (BBJ) are versions of Boeing's jet airliners with modifications to serve the private, head of state and corporate jet market. In 1996, Phil Condit, president of The Boeing Company, and Jack Welch, chairman and CEO of Genera ...

*: Note: A registration search on the FAA's public website indicates these may have been false registrations, as these N-numbers have been registered to other aircraft types, with no mention of the above types in the history. * On May 31, 2008, ''

'' reported that the human rights group Reprieve said up to seventeen US naval vessels may have been used to covertly hold captives. In addition to the USS ''Bataan'' ''The Guardian'' named: USS ''Peleliu'' and the USS ''Ashland'', USNS ''Stockham'', USNS ''Watson'', USNS ''Watkins'', USNS ''Sister'', USNS ''Charlton'', USNS ''Pomeroy'', USNS ''Red Cloud'', USNS ''Soderman'', and USNS ''Dahl''; MV ''PFC William B Baugh'', MV ''Alex Bonnyman'', MV ''Franklin J Phillips'', MV ''Louis J Huage Jr'' and MV ''James Anderson Jr''. The ''Ashland'' was stationed off the coast of

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constitut ...

, in 2007, and, Reprieve expressed concern it had been used as a receiving ship for up to 100 captives taken in East Africa.

Media and investigative history

Media

''The Washington Post'' December 2002

''The Washington Post'' on December 26, 2002, reported about a secret CIA prison in one corner of

Bagram Air Force Base Bagram Airfield-BAF, also known as Bagram Air Base , is located southeast of Charikar in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan. It is under the Afghan Ministry of Defense. Sitting on the site of the ancient Bagram at an elevation of above sea leve ...

(Afghanistan) consisting of metal shipping containers. On March 14, 2004, ''The Guardian'' reported that three British citizens were held captive in a secret section ( Camp Echo) of the Guantánamo Bay complex. Several other articles reported the retention of ghost detainees by the CIA, alongside the other official " enemy combatants". However, it was the revelations of ''The Washington Post'', in a November 2, 2005, article, that would start the scandal. (

below Below may refer to: *Earth * Ground (disambiguation) *Soil *Floor * Bottom (disambiguation) *Less than *Temperatures below freezing *Hell or underworld People with the surname *Ernst von Below (1863–1955), German World War I general *Fred Below ...

)

Human Rights Watch March 2004 report

A report by the

organization

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...

, entitled "Enduring Freedom - Abuses by US Forces in Afghanistan", states that the CIA has operated in Afghanistan since September 2001; maintaining a large facility in the Ariana Chowk neighborhood of

and a detention and interrogation facility at the

Bagram airbase Bagram Airfield-BAF, also known as Bagram Air Base , is located southeast of Charikar in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan. It is under the Afghan Ministry of Defense. Sitting on the site of the ancient Bagram at an elevation of above sea leve ...

''Village'' March 2005 report

In the February 26 – March 4, 2005, edition of Ireland's ''

Village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

'' magazine, an article titled "Abductions via Shannon" claimed that Dublin and Shannon airports in Ireland were "used by the CIA to abduct suspects in its 'war on terror'". The article went on to state that a

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two u ...

(registration number N313P, later reregistered N4476S) "was routed through Shannon and Dublin on fourteen occasions from January 1, 2003 to the end of 2004. This is according to the flight log of the aircraft obtained from Washington, D.C., by ''Village''. Destinations included

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, an ...

(1/11/03);

Salé Salé ( ar, سلا, salā, ; ber, ⵙⵍⴰ, sla) is a city in northwestern Morocco, on the right bank of the Bou Regreg river, opposite the national capital Rabat, for which it serves as a commuter town. Founded in about 1030 by the Banu Ifran, ...

Palma Palma or La Palma means palm in a number of languages and may also refer to: Geography Africa * Palma, Mozambique, city ** Palma District * La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, Spain ** La Palma (DO), a ''Denominación de Origen'' for wines from ...

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

, (all January 16, 2004); Marka (May 10, 2004 and June 13, 2004). Other flights began in places such as

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, wikt:دبي, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the List of cities in the United Arab Emirates#Major cities, most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 ...

(June 2, 2003 and December 30, 2003), Mitiga (October 29, 2003 and April 27, 2004), Baghdad (2003) and Marka (February 8, 2004, March 4, 2004, May 10, 2004), all of which ended in Washington, D.C.. According to the article, the same aircraft landed in Guantanamo Bay on September 23, 2003, "having travelled from Kabul to Szymany (Poland),

Mihail Kogălniceanu Mihail Kogălniceanu (; also known as Mihail Cogâlniceanu, Michel de Kogalnitchan; September 6, 1817 – July 1, 1891) was a Romanian liberal statesman, lawyer, historian and publicist; he became Prime Minister of Romania on October 11, 1863, ...

(Romania) and Salé (Morocco)". It had been used "in connection with the abduction in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, of Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, on 31 December 2003, and his transport to a US detention centre in Afghanistan on 23 January 2004". In the article, it was noted that the aircraft's registration showed it as being owned by

Premier Executive Transport Services Premier Executive Transport Services was an airline listed as Foreign Corporation in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is alleged to be a front company for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). According to investigative journalists the com ...

, based in

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

, though as of February 2005 it was listed as being owned by Keeler and Tate Management,

Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is th ...

(US). On the day of registration transference, a Gulfstream V jet (number N8068V) used in the same activities, was transferred from Premier Executive Transport Services to a company called Baynard Foreign Marketing.

''Washington Post'' November 2005 article

A story by reporter Dana Priest published in ''The Washington Post'' of November 2, 2005, reported: "The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important alleged al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement." According to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats, there is a network of foreign prisons that includes or has included sites in several European democracies, Thailand, Afghanistan, and a small portion of the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba—this network has been labeled by

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and s ...

as "

The Gulag Archipelago ''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' (russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, ''Arkhipelag GULAG'') is a three-volume non-fiction text written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr So ...

", in a clear reference to the novel of the same name by Russian writer and activist

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repr ...

. The reporting of the secret prisons was heavily criticized by members and former members of the Bush Administration. However, Priest states no one in the administration requested that ''The Washington Post'' not print the story. Rather they asked they not publish the names of the countries in which the prisons are located. "The Post has not identified the East European countries involved in the secret program at the request of senior U.S. officials who argued that the disclosure could disrupt

counter-terrorism Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or ...

efforts".

Human Rights Watch's report

On November 3, 2005, Tom Malinowski of the New York-based

cited circumstantial evidence pointing to Poland and Romania hosting CIA-operated covert prisons. Flight records obtained by the group documented the Boeing 737 'N4476S' leased by the CIA for transporting prisoners leaving Kabul and making stops in Poland and Romania before continuing on to Morocco, and finally Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Such flight patterns might corroborate the claims of government officials that prisoners are grouped into different classes being deposited in different locations. Malinowski's comments prompted quick denials by both Polish and Romanian government officials as well as sparking the concern of the

("ICRC"), who called for access to all foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States. The accusation that several EU members may have allowed the United States to hold, imprison or torture detainees on their soil has been a subject of controversy in the European body, who announced in November 2005 that any country found to be complicit could lose their right to vote in the council.

Amnesty International November 2005 report

On November 8, 2005, rights group

provided the first comprehensive testimony from former inmates of the CIA black sites. The report, which documented the cases of three

i nationals, was the first to describe the conditions in black site detention in detail. In a subsequent report, in April 2006, Amnesty International used flight records and other information to locate the black site in Eastern Europe or Central Asia.

BBC December 2006 report

On December 28, 2006, the BBC reported that during 2003, a well-known CIA

aircraft implicated in extraordinary renditions, N379P, had on several occasions landed at the Polish airbase of Szymany. The airport manager said that airport officials were told to keep away from the aircraft, which parked at the far end of the runway and frequently kept their engines running. Vans from a nearby intelligence base ( Stare Kiejkuty) met the aircraft, stayed for a short while and then drove off. Landing fees were paid in cash, with the invoices made out to "probably fake" American companies.

''New Yorker'' August 2007 article

An August 13, 2007, story by

Jane Mayer Jane Meredith Mayer (born 1955) is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1995. She has written for the publication about money in politics; government prosecution of whistleblowers; the Uni ...

in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' reported that the CIA has operated "black site" secret prisons by the direct presidential order of George W. Bush since shortly after 9/11, and that extreme psychological interrogation measures based at least partially on the

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...

-era Phoenix Program were used on detainees. These included sensory deprivation,

sleep deprivation Sleep deprivation, also known as sleep insufficiency or sleeplessness, is the condition of not having adequate duration and/or quality of sleep to support decent alertness, performance, and health. It can be either chronic or acute and may vary ...

, keeping prisoners naked indefinitely and photographing them naked to degrade and humiliate them, and forcibly administering drugs by suppositories to further break down their dignity. According to Mayer's report, CIA officers have taken out professional liability insurance, fearing that they could be criminally prosecuted if what they have already done became public knowledge.

September 2007 media reports to present

On September 14, 2007, ''The Washington Post'' reported that members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had requested the withdrawal of the nomination of

John A. Rizzo John Anthony Rizzo (October 6, 1947August 6, 2021) was an American attorney who worked as a lawyer in the Central Intelligence Agency for 34 years. He was the deputy counsel or acting general counsel of the CIA for the first nine years of the Wa ...

—a career CIA lawyer—for the position of

general counsel A general counsel, also known as chief counsel or chief legal officer (CLO), is the chief in-house lawyer for a company or a governmental department. In a company, the person holding the position typically reports directly to the CEO, and their ...

, due to concerns about his support for Bush administration legal doctrines permitting "enhanced interrogation" of terrorism detainees in CIA custody. On October 4, 2007, ''The New York Times'' reported that, shortly after

Alberto Gonzales Alberto R. Gonzales (born August 4, 1955) is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General, appointed in February 2005 by President George W. Bush, becoming the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive governme ...

became

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

in February 2005, the

Justice Department A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

issued a secret opinion which for the first time provided CIA explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures. This was in direct opposition to a public legal opinion issued in December 2004 that declared torture "abhorrent". Gonzales reportedly approved the legal memorandum on "combined effects" over the objections of

James B. Comey James Brien Comey Jr. (; born December 14, 1960) is an American lawyer who was the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2013 until his dismissal in May 2017. Comey was a registered Republican for most of his adul ...

, the outgoing deputy attorney general, who told colleagues at the Justice Department that they would all be "ashamed" when the world eventually learned of it. According to the ''Times'' report, the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums.

Patrick Leahy Patrick Joseph Leahy (; born March 31, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who is the senior United States senator from Vermont and serves as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate. A member of the Democratic Party, ...

and

John Conyers John James Conyers Jr. (May 16, 1929October 27, 2019) was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as a U.S. representative from Michigan from 1965 to 2017. The districts he represented always included part of western Detroit ...

, chairmen of the respective Senate and House Judiciary committees, requested that the Justice Department turn over documents related to the secret February 2005 legal opinion to their committees for review. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,

John D. Rockefeller IV John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV (born June 18, 1937) is a retired American politician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia (1985–2015). He was first elected to the Senate in 1984, while in office as governor of West Virg ...

, wrote to acting attorney general

Peter D. Keisler Peter Douglas Keisler (born October 13, 1960) is an American lawyer whose 2006 nomination by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit became embroiled in partisan controversy. He is a par ...

, asking for copies of all opinions on interrogation since 2004. "I find it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by The New York Times than by the Department of Justice", Rockefeller's letter read in part. On October 5, 2007, President George W. Bush responded, saying "This government does not torture people. You know, we stick to U.S. law and our international obligations." Bush said that the interrogation techniques "have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of Congress". On October 11, 2007, ''The New York Times'' reported that Michael Hayden had ordered an unusual internal inquiry into the work of the agency's inspector general, John L. Helgerson, whose aggressive investigations of the CIA's detention and interrogation programs and other matters have created resentment among agency operatives. The inquiry is reportedly being overseen by Robert L. Deitz, a lawyer who served as general counsel at the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

when Michael Hayden ran it, and also includes

Michael Morell Michael Joseph Morell (; born September 4, 1958) is an American former career intelligence analyst. He served as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2010 to 2013 and twice as its acting director, first in 2011 and then fr ...

, the agency's associate deputy director. A report by Helgerson's office completed in the spring of 2004 warned that some CIA-approved interrogation procedures appeared to constitute cruel,

inhuman and degrading treatment Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDT) is treatment of persons which is contrary to human rights or dignity, but is not classified as torture. It is forbidden by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3 of the European Convention ...

, as defined by the international Convention Against Torture. Some of the inspector general's work on detention issues was conducted by Mary O. McCarthy, who was fired from the agency in 2006 after being accused of leaking classified information. Helgerson's office is reportedly nearing completion on a number of inquiries into CIA detention, interrogation, and renditions. Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees expressed concern about the inquiry, saying that it could undermine the inspector general's role as independent watchdog. Senator Ron Wyden ( D–

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

) said he was sending a letter to Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, asking him to instruct Hayden to drop the inquiry. In an October 30, 2007, address to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Hayden defended the agency's interrogation methods, saying, "Our programs are as lawful as they are valuable." Asked a question about

, Hayden mentioned attorney general nominee

Michael Mukasey Michael Bernard Mukasey (; born July 28, 1941) is an American attorney and former federal judge who served as the 81st Attorney General of the United States from 2007 to 2009. Born in New York City in 1941, Mukasey attended Ramaz School, gradua ...

, saying, "Judge Mukasey cannot nor can I answer your question in the abstract. I need to understand the totality of the circumstances in which this question is being posed before I can give you an answer." On December 6, 2007, the CIA admitted that it had destroyed videotapes recordings of CIA interrogations of terrorism suspects involving harsh interrogation techniques, tapes which critics suggest may have documented the use of torture by the CIA, such as waterboarding. The tapes were made in 2002 as part of a secret detention and interrogation program, and were destroyed in November 2005. The reason cited for the destruction of the tapes was that the tapes posed a security risk for the interrogators shown on the tapes. Yet the department also stated that the tapes "had no more intelligence value and were not relevant to any inquiries". In response, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin ( D-Michigan) stated: "You'd have to burn every document at the CIA that has the identity of an agent on it under that theory." Other Democrats in Congress also made public statements of outrage about the destruction of the tapes, suggesting that a violation of law had occurred.

European investigations

After a media and public outcry in Europe concerning headlines about "secret CIA prisons" in Poland and other US allies, the EU through its Committee on Legal Affairs investigated whether any of its members, especially Poland, the Czech Republic or Romania had any of these "secret CIA prisons". After an investigation by the EU Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, the EU determined that it could not find any of these prisons. In fact, they could not prove if they had ever existed at all. To quote the report, "At this stage of the investigations, there is no formal, irrefutable evidence of the existence of secret CIA detention centres in Romania, Poland or any other country. Nevertheless, there are many indications from various sources which must be considered reliable, justifying the continuation of the analytical and investigative work." Nonetheless, the CIA's alleged programme prompted several official investigations in Europe into the existence of such secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states. A June 2006 report from the Council of Europe estimated 100 people had been kidnapped by the CIA on EU territory (with the cooperation of Council of Europe members), and rendered to other countries, often after having transited through secret detention centres ("black sites") used by the CIA, some located in Europe. According to the separate European Parliament report of February 2007, the CIA has conducted 1,245 flights, many of them to destinations where suspects could face torture, in violation of article 3 of the

Spanish investigations

In November 2005, '' El País'' reported that CIA planes had landed in the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

and in

Palma de Mallorca Palma (; ; also known as ''Palma de Mallorca'', officially between 1983–88, 2006–08, and 2012–16) is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is situate ...

. A state prosecutor opened up an investigation concerning these landings which, according to

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, were made without official knowledge, thus being a breach of

national sovereignty Westphalian sovereignty, or state sovereignty, is a principle in international law that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its territory. The principle underlies the modern international system of sovereign states and is enshrined in the Un ...

French investigations

The prosecutor of

Bobigny Bobigny () is a commune, or town, in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Bobigny is the prefecture (capital city) of the Seine-Saint-Denis department, as well as the seat of the A ...

court, in France, opened up an investigation in order "to verify the presence in Le Bourget Airport, on July 20, 2005, of the plane numbered N50BH". This instruction was opened following a complaint deposed in December 2005 by the ''

Ligue des droits de l'homme The Human Rights League (french: Ligue des droits de l’homme ''t du citoyen' or LDH) of France is a Human Rights NGO association to observe, defend and promulgation of Rights Man within the French Republic in all spheres of public life. The ...

'' (LDH) NGO ("Human Rights League") and the ''

International Federation of Human Rights Leagues The International Federation for Human Rights (french: Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme; FIDH) is a non-governmental federation for human rights organizations. Founded in 1922, FIDH is the third oldest international h ...

'' (FIDH) NGO on charges of "arbitrary detention", "crime of torture" and "non-respect of the rights of war prisoners". It has as objective to determine if the plane was used to transport CIA prisoners to

Guantanamo Bay detainment camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...

and if the French authorities had knowledge of this stop. However, the lawyer representing the LDH declared that he was surprised that the judicial investigation was only opened on January 20, 2006, and that no verifications had been done before. On December 2, 2005, conservative newspaper ''

Le Figaro ''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of r ...

'' had revealed the existence of two CIA planes that had landed in France, suspected of transporting CIA prisoners. But the instruction concerned only N50BH, which was a

Gulfstream III The Gulfstream III, a business jet produced by Gulfstream Aerospace, is an improved variant of the Grumman Gulfstream II. Design and development The Gulfstream III was built at Savannah, Georgia, in the United States and was designed as an i ...

, which would have landed at Le Bourget on July 20, 2005, coming from

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

, Norway. The other suspected aircraft would have landed in

Brest Brest may refer to: Places *Brest, Belarus **Brest Region **Brest Airport **Brest Fortress * Brest, Kyustendil Province, Bulgaria * Břest, Czech Republic *Brest, France ** Arrondissement of Brest **Brest Bretagne Airport ** Château de Brest *Br ...

on March 31, 2002. It is investigated by the Canadian authorities, as it would have been flying from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, via

Keflavík Keflavík (pronounced , meaning ''Driftwood Bay'') is a town in the Reykjanes region in southwest Iceland. It is included in the municipality of Reykjanesbær whose population as of 2016 is 15,129. In 1995, Keflavik merged with nearby Njarð ...

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

before going to Turkey.

Portuguese investigations

On February 5, 2007, Portuguese general prosecutor Cândida Almeida, head of the Central Investigation and Penal Action Department (DCIAP), announced an investigation of "torture or inhuman and cruel treatment", prompted by allegations of "illegal activities and serious human rights violations" made by MEP

Ana Gomes Ana Maria Rosa Martins Gomes (born 9 February 1954), better known as Ana Gomes, is a Portuguese former diplomat and politician of the Socialist Party (PS). She earned wide recognition for her role in negotiating independence for East Timor, a ...

to the attorney general, Pinto Monteiro, on January 26, 2007."Portugal: Renditions: Judicial investigation into CIA flights begins"

Statewatch Statewatch is a non-profit organization founded in 1991 that monitors civil liberties and other issues in the European Union and encourages investigative reporting and research. The organization has three free databases: a large database of all its ...

News Online, February 5–6, 2007 Gomes was highly critical of the

Portuguese government , border = Central , image = , caption = , date = , state = Portuguese Republic , address = Official Residence of the Prime Minister Estrela, Lisbon , appointed = President ...

's reluctance to comply with the European Parliament Commission investigation into the CIA flights, leading to tensions with Foreign Minister

Luís Amado Luís Filipe Marques Amado, GCC (born 17 September 1953) is a portuguese politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2011 in Portugal's XIII Government led by the Socialist Party. Before replacing Diogo Freitas do Amaral ...

, a member of her party. She said she had no doubt that illegal flights were frequently permitted during the

Durão Barroso Durão is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Joaquim Durão (1930–2015), Portuguese chess player * Nuno Durão (born 1962), Portuguese rugby union footballer and coach *Santa Rita Durão José de Santa Rita Durão (1722–178 ...

(2002–2004) and Santana Lopes (2004–2005) governments, and that "during the resent Socialistgovernment of

José Sócrates José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, GCIH (born 6 September 1957), commonly known as José Sócrates (), is a Portuguese politician who was the prime minister of Portugal from 12 March 2005 to 21 June 2011. For the second half of 2007, he ...

, 24 flights which passed through Portuguese territory" are documented. She expressed satisfaction with the opening of the investigation, but emphasized that she had always said a parliamentary inquiry would also be necessary. ''Visão'' magazine journalist Rui Costa Pinto also testified before the DCIAP. He had written an article, rejected by the magazine, about flights passing through

Lajes Field Lajes Field or Lajes Air Base (; pt, Base Aérea das Lajes), officially designated Air Base No. 4 (''Base Aérea Nº 4'', BA4) , is a multi-use airfield near Lajes and northeast of Angra do Heroísmo on Terceira Island in the Azores, Portug ...

in the

Azores ) , motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace") , anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores") , image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg , map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union , map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...

, a Portuguese airbase used by the U.S. Air Force. Costa Pinto wrote a book about his investigation. Approximately 150 CIA flights have been identified as having flown through Portugal.

Polish investigations

In January 2012, Poland's

Prosecutor General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

's office initiated investigative proceedings against

Zbigniew Siemiątkowski Zbigniew Siemiątkowski (born 8 October 1957 in Ciechanów, Poland) is a Polish politician and political scientist. He was Minister of Internal Affairs, 1996–97, and head of the Intelligence Agency (''Agencja Wywiadu'', or ''AW''), 2002 – A ...

, the former

Polish intelligence This article covers the history of Polish Intelligence services dating back to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Commonwealth Though the first official Polish government service entrusted with espionage, intelligence and counter-intelligence ...

chief. Siemiątkowski is charged with facilitating the alleged CIA detention operation in Poland, where foreign suspects may have been tortured in the context of the War on Terror. The alleged

constitutional A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these prin ...

and

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

trespasses took place when

, presently member of

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

and leader of the

Democratic Left Alliance The Democratic Left Alliance () was a social-democratic political party in Poland. It was formed in 9 July 1991 as an electoral alliance of centre-left parties, and became a single party on 15 April 1999. It was the major coalition party in Pol ...

, was Prime Minister (2001–2004), and he may also be subjected to future legal action (a trial before the State Tribunal of the Republic of Poland). The future robustness of the highly secret investigation, in progress since 2008, may however be in some doubt. According to the leading Polish newspaper ''

Gazeta Wyborcza ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of " real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the ...

'', soon after Siemiątkowski was charged by the prosecutors in

, the case was transferred and is now expected to be handled by a different prosecutorial team in Cracow. The United States authorities have refused to cooperate with the investigation and the turning over of the relevant documents to the prosecution by the unwilling

Intelligence Agency An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of informa ...

was forced only after the statutory intervention of the First President of the

Supreme Court of Poland The Supreme Court ( pl, Sąd Najwyższy) is the highest court in the Republic of Poland. It is located in the Krasiński Square, Warsaw. One of the chambers of the Supreme Court, the Disciplinary Chamber, was suspended by a judgment of the CJ ...

. Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri are said to have been held and subjected to physical punishments at the Stare Kiejkuty intelligence base in northeastern Poland.

Other European investigations

The

(EU) as well as the Council of Europe pledged to investigate the allegations. On November 25, 2005, the lead investigator for the Council of Europe, Swiss lawmaker Dick Marty announced that he had obtained latitude and longitude coordinates for suspected black sites, and he was planning to use satellite imagery over the last several years as part of his investigation. On November 28, 2005, EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini asserted that any EU country which had operated a secret prison would have its voting rights suspended. On December 13, 2005, Marty, investigating illegal CIA activity in Europe on behalf of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, reported evidence that "individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards". His investigation has found that no evidence exists establishing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe, but added that it was "highly unlikely" that European governments were unaware of the American program of renditions. However, Marty's interim report, which was based largely on a compendium of press clippings has been harshly criticised by the governments of various EU member states. The preliminary report declared that it was "highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware" of the CIA kidnapping of a "hundred" persons on European territory and their subsequent rendition to countries where they may be tortured. On April 21, 2006, ''The New York Times'' reported that European investigators said they had not been able to find conclusive evidence of the existence of European black sites.Bilefsky, Dan (April 21, 2006)
"No Proof of Secret C.I.A. Prisons, European Antiterror Chief Says"
''The New York Times''. On June 27, 2007, the

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe, a 46-nation international organisation dedicated to upholding human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Assembly is made up ...

voted on Resolution 1562 and Recommendation 1801 backing the conclusions of the report by Dick Marty. The Assembly declared that it was established with a high degree of probability that secret detention centres had been operated by the CIA under the High Value Detainee (HVD) program for some years in Poland and Romania.

The Onyx-intercepted fax

In its edition of January 8, 2006, the Swiss newspaper '' Sonntagsblick'' published a document intercepted on November 10 by the Swiss Onyx interception system (similar to the

UKUSA The United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement (UKUSA, ) is a multilateral agreement for cooperation in signals intelligence between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The alliance of intell ...

's ECHELON system). Purportedly sent by the Egyptian embassy in London to foreign minister

Ahmed Aboul Gheit Ahmed Aboul Gheit ( ar, أحمد أبو الغيط , also: Abu al-Ghayt, Abu El Gheyt, etc.) (born 12 June 1942) is an Egyptian politician and diplomat who has been Secretary-General of the Arab League since July 2016. He was reappointed for a s ...

, the document states that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens were interrogated at Mihail Kogălniceanu base near Constanța, Romania. According to the same document, similar interrogation centers exist in Bulgaria, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, and Ukraine. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry later explained that the intercepted fax was merely a review of the Romanian press done by the Egyptian Embassy in Bucharest. It probably referred to a statement by controversial Senator and Great Romania party leader

Corneliu Vadim Tudor Corneliu Vadim Tudor (; 28 November 1949 – 14 September 2015) also colloquially known as "Tribunul" was the leader of the Greater Romania Party ( ro, Partidul România Mare), poet, writer, journalist, and a Member of the European Parliament. H ...

. The Swiss government did not officially confirm the existence of the report, but started a judiciary procedure for leakage of secret documents against the newspaper on January 9, 2006.

The European Parliament's February 14, 2007, report

The

's report, adopted by a large majority (382

voting in favor, 256 against and 74 abstaining) passed on February 14, 2007, concludes that many European countries tolerated illegal actions of the CIA including secret flights over their territories. The countries named were: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Although no clear evidence have been found against the United Kingdom. The report:

denounces the lack of co-operation of many member states and of the
Council of the European Union The Council of the European Union, often referred to in the treaties and other official documents simply as the Council, and informally known as the Council of Ministers, is the third of the seven Institutions of the European Union (EU) as ...
with the investigation; Regrets that European countries have been relinquishing control over their airspace and airports by turning a blind eye or admitting flights operated by the CIA which, on some occasions, were being used for illegal transportation of detainees; Calls for the closure of he US military detention mission inGuantanamo and for European countries immediately to seek the return of their citizens and residents who are being held illegally by the US authorities; Considers that all European countries should initiate independent investigations into all stopovers by civilian aircraft ired bythe CIA; Urges that a ban or system of inspections be introduced for all CIA-operated aircraft known to have been involved in extraordinary rendition.

The report criticized a number of European countries (including Austria, Italy, Poland along with Portugal) for their "unwillingness to co-operate" with investigators and the action of secret services for lack of cooperation with the Parliaments' investigators and acceptal of the illegal abductions. The European Parliament voted a resolution condemning member states which accepted or ignore the practice. According to the report, the CIA had operated 1,245 flights, many of them to destinations where suspects could face torture. The Parliament also called for the creation of an independent investigation commission and the closure of Guantanamo. According to Giovanni Fava (

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...

), who drafted the document, there was a "strong possibility" that the intelligence obtained under the extraordinary rendition illegal program had been passed on to EU governments who were aware of how it was obtained. The report also uncovered the use of secret detention facilities used in Europe, including Romania and Poland. The report defines extraordinary renditions as instances where "an individual suspected of involvement in terrorism is illegally abducted, arrested and/or transferred into the custody of US officials and/or transported to another country for interrogation which, in the majority of cases involves incommunicado detention and torture".UK officials have further denied any claims and many investing officials agree to it that UK was not involved in the detention and torture or about hosting prisons. UK might have been a transit state but there is no proof about this either.

Obama administration

On January 22, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama signed an

executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of t ...

requiring the CIA to use only the 19 interrogation methods outlined in the United States

Army Field Manual United States Army Field Manuals are published by the United States Army's Army Publishing Directorate. As of 27 July 2007, some 542 field manuals were in use. They contain detailed information and how-tos for procedures important to soldiers ser ...

"unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance". The order also provided that "The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future."Obama issues torture ba
Executive Order -- Ensuring Lawful Interrogations
,

The White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 180 ...

, January 20, 2009 On March 5, 2009, ''

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Tele ...

'' reported that the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

intelligence committee was beginning a one-year inquiry in the CIA's detention program. In April 2009, CIA director

Leon Panetta Leon Edward Panetta (born June 28, 1938) is an American Democratic Party politician who has served in several different public office positions, including Secretary of Defense, CIA Director, White House Chief of Staff, Director of the Office of ...

announced that the "CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites", in a letter to staff and that " maining sites would be decommissioned". He also announced that the CIA was no longer allowing outside "contractors" to carry out interrogations and that the CIA no longer employed controversial "harsh interrogation techniques". Panetta informed his fellow employees that the CIA would only use interrogation techniques authorized in the US Army interrogation manual, and that any individuals taken into custody by the CIA would only be held briefly, for the time necessary to transfer them to the custody of authorities in their home countries, or the custody of another US agency. In 2011, the Obama administration admitted that it had been holding a Somali prisoner for two months aboard a U.S. naval ship at sea for interrogation.

US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Study of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program

On December 9, 2014

(SSCI) released a 525-page portion that consisted of key findings and an executive summary of the report called ''Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program''. The rest of the report remains classified for unpublished reasons. The 6,000-page report produced 20 key findings. They are, verbatim from the unclassified summary report: # The CIA's use of its

was not an effective means of acquiring

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...

or gaining cooperation from detainees. # The CIA's justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness. # The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others. # The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others. # The CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the

Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

, impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. # The CIA has actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight of the program. # The CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making. # The CIA's operation and management of the program complicated, and in some cases impeded, the national security missions of other Executive Branch agencies. # The CIA impeded oversight by the CIA's

Office of Inspector General In the United States, Office of Inspector General (OIG) is a generic term for the oversight division of a federal or state agency aimed at preventing inefficient or unlawful operations within their parent agency. Such offices are attached to ma ...

. # The CIA coordinated the release of classified information to the media, including inaccurate information concerning the effectiveness of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques. # The CIA was unprepared as it began operating its Detention and Interrogation Program more than six months after being granted detention authorities. # The CIA's management and operation of its Detention and Interrogation Program was deeply flawed throughout the program's duration, particularly so in 2002 and early 2003. # Two contract psychologists devised the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments, and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the program. # CIA detainees were subjected to coercive interrogation techniques that had not been approved by the Department of Justice or had not been authorized by CIA Headquarters. # The CIA did not conduct a comprehensive or accurate accounting of the number of individuals it detained, and held individuals who did not meet the legal standard for detention. The CIA's claims about the number of detainees held and subjected to its enhanced interrogation techniques were inaccurate. # The CIA failed to adequately evaluate the effectiveness of its enhanced interrogation techniques. # The CIA rarely reprimanded or held personnel accountable for serious or significant violations, inappropriate activities, and systematic and individual management failures. # The CIA marginalized and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections concerning the operation and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. # The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program was inherently unsustainable and had effectively ended by 2006 due to unauthorized press disclosures, reduced cooperation from other nations, and legal and oversight concerns. # The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States' standing in the world, and resulted in other significant monetary and non-monetary costs. According to the report, at least 26 of the 119 prisoners (22%) held by the CIA were subsequently found by the CIA to have been improperly detained, many having also experienced torture. Of the 119 known detainees, at least 39 were subjected to the CIA enhanced interrogation techniques. In at least six cases, the CIA used torture on suspects before evaluating whether they would be willing to cooperate.

European Court of Human Rights decisions

On July 24, 2014, the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that ...

ruled that

violated the

European Convention on Human Rights The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by ...

when it cooperated with the US, allowing the CIA to hold and torture Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri on its territory in 2002–2003. The court ordered the Polish government to pay each of the men 100,000 euros in damages. It also awarded Abu Zubaydah 30,000 euros to cover his costs. On 31 May 2018, the ECHR ruled that

and

also violated the rights of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2003–2005 and in 2005–2006 respectively, and Lithuania and Romania were ordered to pay 100,000 euros in damages each to Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri.

References

External links

* {{Incarceration Black sites Penal imprisonment Central Intelligence Agency operations Counterterrorism in the United States Detention centers for extrajudicial prisoners of the United States George W. Bush administration controversies Human rights abuses Imprisonment and detention Locations in the history of espionage Political scandals in Poland Prisons Torture in the United States 2007 in the European Union Central Intelligence Agency controversies