Report claims CIA is holding top al-Qaida suspects in Eastern Europe

THE CIA has been hiding and interrogating al-Qaida captives at a secret facility in Eastern Europe, The Washington Post reported yesterday.

This is part of a covert global prison system that has included sites in eight countries and was set up after the September 11 attacks, according to the newspaper.

The network included “several democracies in Eastern Europe” as well as Thailand and Afghanistan, the newspaper said, but it did not publish the names of the countries at the request of senior US officials.

US government officials declined to comment on the report, but it was likely to stir up fresh criticism of the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners in its war on terrorism.

Russia, Bulgaria and Thailand denied hosting any such facility.

The newspaper, which said its report was based on information from US and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement, said the existence and locations of the facilities were known only to a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country. The CIA has not acknowledged the existence of a secret prison network.

The Bush administration’s policy toward prisoners taken in Afghanistan and Iraq has come under fire after inmate abuse in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib jail and a lack of transparency about those being held at a navy base in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.

The paper said the prisons are referred to as “black sites” and virtually nothing is known about who the detainees are, how they are interrogated or about decisions on how long they will be held. About 30 major suspects have been held at black sites while 70 others were delivered to foreign intelligence services.

The top 30 al-Qaida prisoners are isolated from the outside world, have no recognised legal rights and no one outside the CIA is allowed to talk with or see them, the sources said.

The paper said the CIA used such detention centres abroad because in the United States it is illegal to hold prisoners in such isolation.

Meanwhile, security has been tightened at the US military prison in Afghanistan after the escape of a suspected al-Qaida leader as Indonesian anti-terrorism officials accused Washington of failing to tell them of the break-out.

Omar al-Farouq was considered one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants in Southeast Asia until Indonesian authorities captured him in 2002 and turned him over to the United States. He was one of four suspected terrorists to escape from the Bagram detention facility in July.

In reports at the time, al-Farouq was identified by an alias and the US only confirmed on Tuesday that he had escaped.