Prisoners ‘not going through Shannon’

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern yesterday refuted claims that tortured prisoners bound for Guantanamo Bay had been transported through Shannon Airport.

Anti-war campaigners this week highlighted evidence that a US plane used to ferry prisoners to and from Guantanamo Bay was landing frequently at Shannon Airport.

The campaigners claim the aircraft concerned - a corporate-style Gulfstream jet marked ‘N379P’ - is used by the CIA to snatch al-Qaeda suspects and transport them to various locations for interrogation.

Those claims gained considerable credence after the jet was identified by Swedish airport police and featured in a recent investigative documentary on Swedish TV. The documentary followed the fate of two Egyptian suspects who were snatched from Sweden on N379P in what the CIA called an “extraordinary rendition” in December 2001.

Both men, who had been granted asylum in Sweden, were taken to Cairo where they claim to have been brutally interrogated and tortured.

One was subsequently released 34 months later without charge having been beaten and tortured. The other was convicted in a military court in a closed trial.

Following the incident, the Swedish Government called for an international investigation into the unorthodox apprehension.

However, responding to his first set of parliamentary questions in Foreign Affairs, Minister Ahern said there was no evidence any prisoners were being transported through Ireland.

However a spokesperson for the Department of Transport said the Department was in discussions with the Department of Foreign Affairs in relation to claims regarding the plane concerned.

Earlier this year, Justice Minister Michael McDowell said he would respond immediately to any claims that suspects had been transported through Ireland.