| Europeans have begun arresting the heads of their intelligence services There is no doubt that today the Parliament of the United Europe will extend for six months the investigation into the scandalous case of secret captures in Europe by CIA agents of people suspected of terrorism. After all, Marco Mancini, director of the counterintelligence department at SISMI, Italy's military intelligence service, and his employee Gustavo Pignero were arrested yesterday in Rome. They are accused of helping the CIA kidnap Egyptian imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasser, also known as Abu Omar, in Milan in 2003. The imam, suspected of links to al-Qaeda, was transferred to Egypt, where he was tortured until his release in 2004. Recently, the Milan prosecutor's office issued arrest warrants for 22 Americans involved in the kidnapping, many of them CIA employees.
The European Parliament is conducting its inquiry in parallel with the investigation carried out on behalf of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) by the Swiss senator and PACE deputy Dick Marty. Speaking at a PACE session in Strasbourg at the end of June, Marti expressed doubt that the Italian authorities were not aware of such a “large-scale CIA operation” as the abduction of the Egyptian. Marty called the “Imam case” one of hundreds of segments of the “web” with which the United States has entangled the whole world and Europe in particular in implementing its program of secret detention and illegal trafficking of people. And sometimes “on the basis of mere suspicion of sympathy for an alleged terrorist organization.”
At the time, Marty called on the “affected countries” to conduct their own “prompt and thorough investigation.” This call was reflected in the resolution adopted by PACE, which extended Marti's powers for six months. He was also supported by the Deputy Chairman of the European Commission for Justice, Freedom and Security, Italian Franco Frattini, who said yesterday that he had “long expected” Mancini’s arrest. Marty complains that Poland and Romania, supposedly host to the CIA's secret prisons, have received "no response" regarding the investigations he recommended. Polish MEPs said Marty's report was "based on hearsay" and did not contain conclusive evidence.
Marty came to the conclusion that at least 14 member countries of the Council of Europe contributed to the creation of the CIA prison “web.” Half of them turned a blind eye to “human rights violations”: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Macedonia, Turkey and Sweden. Marty charged the rest with another charge - "active or passive collusion" with the United States. He included Greece, Ireland, Cyprus, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain among these countries. The latter, in particular, he reproached exclusively “for passive collusion.”
For some reason, Marty also treated Macedonia condescendingly. Although it was her special services who seized her on New Year’s Eve 2004 and, without giving her the opportunity to contact her family or lawyer, interrogated Khalid al-Misri, a German citizen of Lebanese origin who came to this country on vacation. This was probably done not without a tip from the CIA. US intelligence agencies mistakenly mistook a law-abiding businessman and father of five children for a terrorist. Soon the Macedonians handed over al-Misri to the Americans. And they transported him to Afghanistan, where al-Misri, as he later wrote in a lawsuit against the US administration, was “subjected to torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment” until May 2004. The United States itself admits that it has carried out secret interstate movements of persons suspected of terrorism,” but denies that it has tortured them or transferred them to countries that practice torture. Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN |
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