Ireland facilitated CIA kidnappings, says report

IRELAND and 13 other EU member states facilitated the illegal kidnapping and secret jailing of terror suspects by turning a blind eye to US activities, a European Parliament report said yesterday.

In the report, MEPs were highly critical of the Government’s policy of allowing CIA flights to land at Irish airports without random searches.

The report, put together over the past year, said CIA-operated aircraft made 147 stopovers at Irish airports and expressed serious concern about the purpose of the flights, which came from or were bound for countries linked with extraordinary rendition circuits and the transfer of detainees.

It deplored the stopovers of aircraft that had been used by the CIA on other occasions for the extraordinary rendition of nine men named in the report — who ended up being jailed and tortured.

Attempts by Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern and by Fianna Fáil MEPs to water down criticism of Ireland largely failed when a two-thirds majority voted through the report.

Mr Ahern rejected the findings, accusing the European Parliament offailing to ensure CIA flights were not carrying terror suspects to torture camps.

He claimed his suggestions to keep tabs on the US secret service had been ignored.

“The alleged figure of 147 supposedly-suspicious flights is grossly inflated. It compares to only three suspicious flights identified by the Council of Europe,” he added.

He also accused MEPs of political point scoring.

The report found Mr Ahern failed to answer some questions during the year-long probe. It also criticised the Government’s acceptance of diplomatic assurances from the US that no rendition flights used Irish airports as falling far short of its human rights obligations.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the Labour party, the Greens and Fine Gael, welcomed the result and urged the government to randomly inspect flights and carry out an independent investigation of the CIA’s continuing use of Irish airports.

Italian MEP Claudio Fava, who authored the report, said: “We do not deal with opinions but with facts. We held 200 hearings that gathered facts. We heard directly from victims and we got facts from them,” he said.

The report said Ireland was open to being abused by secret services because there is no Irish parliamentary scrutiny of Irish or foreign intelligence services.

It said that if CIA-operated planes were not randomly searched, they should be banned and urged the Government to launch a Dáil inquiry into the matter.