Amnesty: Rendition claims never investigated

THE Irish Government has done nothing to investigate alleged rendition flights passing through Shannon Airport, human rights watchdog Amnesty International has said.

Amnesty also said that other European countries are “in denial” about the transport of terrorist suspects en route to US interrogation camps.

Last December the Irish Human Rights Commission called on the Irish Government to establish an inspection system for monitoring such flights.

Amnesty Ireland’s executive director Colm O’Gorman said: “The Irish Government has not taken meaningful steps to discover whether or not Irish territory and airspace has been used for renditions.”

Amnesty’s report, State of denial: Europe’s Role in Rendition and Secret Detention, claims that Shannon was a regular stopover point for aircraft carrying terrorist suspects to interrogation camps.

“Nobody is accepting responsibility or has been held to account,” Mr O’Gorman said.

The Government has always insisted that it has received high-level assurances from US authorities that no rendition flights are passing through Ireland.

But Mr O’Gorman said the Government has continued to rely on discredited US assurances “in the face of advice from a range of bodies such as the Council of Europe and the Irish Human Rights Commission that such assurances are wholly inadequate”.

Amnesty called for an independent inquiry to investigate allegations that rendition aircraft passed through Irish airspace.

Mr O’Gorman said: “Ireland has been a strident critic of the US ‘war on terror’. If it truly believes that rendition is wrong then they must act to prevent it.”