Last night I drew attention to the commission spokeswoman who said of secret CIA prisions that
“This is an issue between the US and any member states concerned”, and
“this has nothing to do with the European Union”. Apparently they’ve realised this is an inadequate response:
The European commission is to investigate claims the CIA is holding al-Qaida captives at Soviet era compounds in eastern Europe.
…
Poland and Romania are thought the most likely locations in Europe, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch and Polish press reports.
If the reports are true, the secret jails would violate European human rights law prohibiting unlawful detention.A commission spokesman said it would informally question the 25 national governments on the claims. “We have to find out what is exactly happening. We have all heard about this, then we have to see if it is confirmed,” he said.(Guardian Unlimited)
Everyone has denied now, though some of the denials are barely plausible let us say.
Migeru sums them up as:
Let’s be politicians, shall we? These people are being less than categorical:
The Polish Interior Minister pleads ignorance and the Defence Minister says Poland does not detain or interrogate terrorists. The Foreign Minister has the impression that this is not about Poland. The Romanian PM says there are no CIA bases or black sites currently in Romania. The Ministry of Foreign affairs says the issue has never been raised at the level of government, whatever that means. Hungary denies having been contacted by the US. Slovakia denies presently hosting the sites. Bulgaria is the only one that clearly denies any involvement now with the CIA ot with AQ prisoners now or in the past. The Czech Republic’s denial is the most interesting as it refers to official negotiations (and rejection) about one month ago.
Update [2005-11-3 13:25:25 by Colman]:
We needn’t worry – the US Democrats are on the case:
Congressional Democrats and human rights groups warned that the secret system would damage the U.S. image overseas.
And the US image abroad is the important thing, innit?