European Commission Demands Investigations Regarding CIA Secret Prisons in Romania

The European Commission asked member states to continue “in depth, independent and impartial investigations to establish the truth, whatever the truth may be” regarding allegations that some EU countries housed CIA secret prisons. According to C.I.A. officials, cited by New York Times, “one jail was a renovated building on a busy street in Bucharest, Romania”.

“We are aware of the claims but they are claims. The Commission has repeatedly stressed the need for member states to commence or continue in depth, independent and impartial investigations to establish the truth, whatever the truth may be as regards claims like this,” Denis Abbott, spokesman of the European Commission, said Friday.

“There is a positive obligation deriving from the European convention on human rights. Such effective investigations should be fully carried out as quickly as possible, in the member states concerned in particular, in order to establish responsibilities and, where appropriate, to enable victims to obtain compensation for damages. The Commission reiterates its view that anti-terrorist activities must be conducted with full respect for fundamental rights, the principle of rule of law and transparency,” Abbott added. The reaction of the European Commission came as a response to the question of whether it will ask the member states said to have housed secret CIA prisons to continue investigations. Romania is among the EU member states alleged to have hosted one such detention center.

“In March 2003, two C.I.A. officials surprised Kyle D. Foggo, then the chief of the agency’s main European supply base, with an unusual request. They wanted his help building secret prisons to hold some of the world’s most threatening terrorists. Mr. Foggo, nicknamed Dusty, was known inside the agency as a cigar-waving, bourbon-drinking operator, someone who could get a cargo plane flying anywhere in the world or quickly obtain weapons, food, money — whatever the C.I.A. needed. His unit in Frankfurt, Germany, was strained by the spy agency’s operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but Mr. Foggo agreed to the assignment (…) Mr. Foggo went on to oversee construction of three detention centers, each built to house about a half-dozen detainees, according to former intelligence officials and others briefed on the matter. One jail was a renovated building on a busy street in Bucharest, Romania, the officials disclosed. Another was a steel-beam structure at a remote site in Morocco that was apparently never used. The third, another remodeling project, was outside another former Eastern bloc city. They were designed to appear identical, so prisoners would be disoriented and not know where they were if they were shuttled back and forth,” the New York Times wrote in its online edition Thursday.

According to the American paper, there was information about the existence of such prisons meant to hold al-Qaida terrorists, but it was kept secret. The Romanian Senate voted in April 2008 to approve a report of an investigation commission which stated Romania did not host CIA detention centers or secret American bases. Romanian officials, the former president of the investigation commission, Norica Nicolai, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Foreign Intelligence Service rejected all these allegations. The U.S. Embassy in Romania said Thursday it refuses to comment upon these “speculations”.  

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