VILNIUS (Reuters) - Lithuania and Romania hosted secret CIA prisons a decade ago and their authorities were aware that detainees were held there illegally, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Thursday.

A view shows the courtroom of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, January 24, 2018. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

Washington’s so-called rendition program is still shrouded in secrecy, around a decade after it ended. Washington has acknowledged it held al Qaeda suspects in jails outside U.S. jurisdiction, but it has not provided a full list of locations.

The ECHR ruled four years ago that the CIA ran a secret jail in Poland. It has since been holding hearings about similar sites in Romania and Lithuania, neither of which has publicly acknowledged letting the U.S. agency hold prisoners on its soil.

The Strasburg-based court said Lithuania hosted a CIA jail between February 2005 and March 2006 and Romania between September 2003 and November 2005. Both contravened the European Human Rights Convention which prohibits torture, illegal detention and the death penalty.

In its ruling, the ECHR said a stateless Palestinian, Zayn Al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, had been held in Lithuania and that authorities there “had known the CIA would subject him to treatment contrary to the Convention”.

“Lithuania had also permitted him to be moved to another CIA detention site in Afghanistan, exposing him to further ill-treatment,” it said.

The court said Romania had similarly violated the Convention in the case of a Saudi national, Abd Al Rahim Husseyn Muhammad Al Nashiri, who is facing the death penalty in the United States in charges over his alleged role in terrorist attacks.

It said Lithuania and Romania should launch full investigations into their roles in the rendition program and punish any officials responsible.

The cases were filed on behalf of detainees currently held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay.

Lithuanian prime minister Saulius Skvernelis told reporters his government would consider whether to appeal the ruling.

A parliamentary investigation in 2010 stated that Lithuania’s security service helped the CIA establish a detention facility, though it said there was no proof the facility was used to hold prisoners. Prosecutors reopened their investigation into the allegations in 2015.

In 2015, Romania’s foreign ministry said authorities had no evidence showing there were CIA detention centers in the country. However, Ioan Talpes, a former national security adviser to Romania’s president, testified that Romania had allowed U.S. intelligence to operate a facility in Romania, though officials were unaware people were detained there.

The CIA’s role in the detention and torture of prisoners in the years after the September 11, 2001 attacks was again in the headlines last month when it became the focus of confirmation hearings for the agency’s new director, Gina Haspel.</s>In a ruling issued on Thursday, May 31, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said Romania had hosted a secret detention facility of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA) between September 2003 and November 2005. The secret jail had the code name Detention Site Black.

The ruling was made in the case in which terror suspect Abd Al Rahim Husseyn Muhammad Al Nashiri, who is now being held in the Internment Facility at the United States (US) Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, said Romania let the CIA take him to the secret prison on its territory and torture him. Al Nashiri had been detained there for about 18 months.

Al Nashiri was one of the so-called “high-value detainees” detained by the CIA at the beginning of the “war on terror” launched by President Bush following the September 11, 2001 attacks. He was captured in October 2002 in Dubai and taken to secret CIA detention facilities in Afghanistan and Thailand before being moved to another CIA “black site” in December 2002 in Poland. From there, Al Nashiri said he had been secretly transferred to five different CIA facilities over the course of three years, including Romania from April 2004 to October/November 2005.

Al Nashiri said he was subjected to torture throughout his detention by the CIA. He also claimed Romania allowed him to be transported to other CIA-run secret detention sites, exposing him to years of further similar treatment, a flagrantly unfair trial and a risk of the death penalty. Also, he accused the lack of a prompt and thorough investigation into his allegations.

Romania initiated a parliamentary inquiry in December 2005, which mainly focused on whether a secret CIA prison had existed in the country, and whether there had been illegal transfer of detainees, suspicious movements of aircraft and possible participation of the domestic authorities in the scheme. In a final 2007 report, the country gave negative answers to these questions. Meanwhile, a criminal investigation in Romania, launched in July 2012 following a complaint by Al Nashiri, is still pending.

The ECHR was unable to visit Al Nashiri at Guantanamo but, based on other evidence and materials, it concluded that it had been proved that a CIA secret detention centre had operated in Romania from September 2003 to November 2005 and that Al Nashiri had been held there from April 2004 to at the latest November 2005. It also decided that Romania knew of the purpose of the CIA’s activities on its territory and had cooperated.

Thus, the ECHR ruled that Romania violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the prohibition on torture, as Al Nashiri suffered “inhuman treatment” in Romania, and held that the country was to pay EUR 100,000 in damages to Al Nashiri. Also, it recommended that Romania should clarify the circumstances in which Al Nashiri had been brought to Romania, his treatment there and his removal, and bring to a close the criminal investigation as soon as possible. The investigation should also aim to identify and, where appropriate, punish those responsible.</s>US Senate confirms Gina Haspel as CIA director despite role in torture program

The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that Lithuania and Romania were complicit in a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to hold terror suspects at secret detention sites on their territories.

Two suspects lodged the case with the court in 2011 and 2012, saying they were illegally held at the CIA "black sites" from 2004 to 2006.

In Romania, the court found authorities knew that Saudi national Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri would risk torture and the death penalty when it allowed the CIA to detain him at a facility from April 2004 to November 2005.

Nashiri is accused of orchestrating a 2002 attack on the MV Limburg, a French oil tanker, and the 2000 attack against the USS Cole in Yemen that left 17 dead.

Lithuania was found complicit in hosting a secret CIA prison from February 2005 to March 2006 when it illegally held a top Palestinian al-Qaida operative, Abu Zubaydah.

A 2014 U.S. Senate report found that both Zubaydah and Nashiri were subject to "enhanced interrogation techniques" in CIA detention, including waterboarding.

The court found that in both cases, the suspects were effectively within their national jurisdictions and therefore Lithuania and Romania were "responsible for the violation" of their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The convention explicitly forbids torture and the death penalty.

Both men were captured by the CIA in 2002 during the "war on terror" launched by then U.S. President George Bush after the September 2001 al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington.

They are currently being held in the Guantanamo Bay prison on a U.S. military base in Cuba.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks the CIA took suspected al-Qaida detainees to several "black sites" around the world to escape U.S. limits on interrogations, a program that has since been judged illegal.

In a similar case in 2014, the court found Poland had violated their rights over their detention there.

The court also ordered Lithuania and Romania to pay 100,000 euros ($117,000) to each man.</s>VILNIUS: Lithuania and Romania hosted secret CIA prisons a decade ago and their authorities were aware that detainees were held there illegally, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Thursday.

Washington’s so-called rendition programme is still shrouded in secrecy, around a decade after it ended. Washington has acknowledged it held al Qaeda suspects in jails outside US jurisdiction, but it has not provided a full list of locations.

The ECHR ruled four years ago that the CIA ran a secret jail in Poland. It has since been holding hearings about similar sites in Romania and Lithuania, neither of which has publicly acknowledged letting the US agency hold prisoners on its soil. The Strasburg-based court said Lithuania hosted a CIA jail between February 2005 and March 2006 and Romania between September 2003 and November 2005. Both contravened the European Human Rights Convention which prohibits torture, illegal detention and the death penalty. In its ruling, the ECHR said a stateless Palestinian, Zayn Al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, had been held in Lithuania and that authorities there “had known the CIA would subject him to treatment contrary to the Convention”. “Lithuania had also permitted him to be moved to another CIA detention site in Afghanistan, exposing him to further ill-treatment,” it said. The court said Romania had similarly violated the Convention in the case of a Saudi national, Abd Al Rahim Husseyn Muhammad Al Nashiri, who is facing the death penalty in the United States in charges over his alleged role in terrorist attacks.

It said Lithuania and Romania should launch full investigations into their roles in the rendition programme and punish any officials responsible. The cases were filed on behalf of detainees currently held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay. Lithuanian prime minister Saulius Skvernelis told reporters his government would consider whether to appeal the ruling.

A parliamentary investigation in 2010 stated that Lithuania’s security service helped the CIA establish a detention facility, though it said there was no proof the facility was used to hold prisoners.</s>The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that Lithuania and Romania were complicit in a controversial CIA programme to hold suspects caught after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in secret detention centres on their territories.

Two suspects now being detained at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay lodged the case with the court in 2011 and 2012, alleging they were illegally held and tortured at CIA "black sites" in Romania and Lithuania from 2004 to 2006.

The court said Romanian authorities knew that Saudi national Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri would risk torture and the death penalty when it allowed the CIA to hold him at an undisclosed facility in their country from April 2004 to November 2005.

Nashiri is accused of orchestrating maritime terror attacks including the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen that left 17 dead.

The former Soviet republic of Lithuania was found complicit in hosting a secret prison from February 2005 to March 2006, when CIA operatives held Abu Zubaydah, considered a top Palestinian operative for Al Qaeda.

A 2014 US Senate report found that both Zubaydah and Nashiri -- considered "high-level detainees" -- were subject to "enhanced interrogation techniques" including waterboarding while in detention.

The ECHR found that in both cases the suspects were effectively within the national jurisdictions of Lithuania and Romania, which were therefore "responsible for the violation" of their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The convention explicitly forbids torture and the death penalty.

The court ordered Lithuania and Romania to pay 100,000 euros ($117,000) to each complainant.

In the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks, the CIA took suspected Al Qaeda detainees to several "black sites" around the world to escape US rules on interrogations -- a programme that has since been judged illegal.

Other punishments inflicted at the sites included intense sleep deprivation, being crammed into coffin-size boxes and "rectal rehydration" to get suspects to talk.

The US Senate report did not publicly identify the location of the CIA sites, but the European court had already condemned Poland in 2014 for allowing both Nashiri and Zubaydah to be held at a site there in 2002 and 2003.

Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite said she would abide by the ruling, saying her country "is already tarnished".

"We are committed to the European Convention on Human Rights, and that is why we must apply the court's decision," she said in a statement.

Officials in Bucharest did not immediately comment, but a former adviser to Ion Iliescu, the president at the time, confirmed Thursday that the government had made a site available to the CIA.

"What happened then, and I was involved, was that a location had been offered to CIA for special and secret operations," Ioan Talpes told AFP.

"I didn't know what was going on there, and I didn't want to know because at the time we were negotiating NATO membership. How could I have said that we don't agree?" he said.

The ECHR judges said they based their findings in large part on the US report since they could not have access to Nashiri and Zubaydah at Guantanamo.

That report "spoke clearly of cooperation with the domestic authorities and of them being provided with millions of dollars for 'support' for the CIA extraordinary rendition programme," the court wrote.

Aleksander Kwasniewski, the Polish president at the time, later said that former US president George W. Bush told him the CIA methods had provided "important benefits" -- a claim disputed by the Senate report.

The report also prompted prosecutors in Lithuania and Romania to open inquiries.

Polish leaders, for their part, vowed last year that they would no longer allow such sites in the country, responding to claims by US President Donald Trump that waterboarding and other now-banned techniques had proved effective.

Trump has also said terror suspects could again be sent to Guantanamo Bay, reversing a push by his predecessor Barack Obama to shut down the highly contested facility in Cuba.

But Gina Haspel, who was sworn in this month as Trump's pick to lead the CIA, has said she would not reinstate the harsh interrogation programmes, even if ordered to do so by the president.

During her confirmation hearings, Haspel expressed regret over her role in detainee torture, including at a secret CIA prison in 2002, after the 9/11 attacks.</s>(Paris) – The European Court of Human Rights on May 31, 2018, issued two key judgments that underscore the ongoing impunity for European complicity with US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) counterterrorism abuses, Human Rights Watch said today.

The court ruled that Lithuania and Romania had violated their human rights obligations for their part in the rendition, secret detention, and torture and ill-treatment of two terrorism suspects. The court also highlighted the serious deficiencies in the national investigations and urged both countries to conclude their investigations into their involvement in the rendition program without delay and to identify and punish relevant officials.

“The European Court’s rulings highlight that European officials have never faced the music for facilitating the CIA’s illegal torture and rendition program,” said Nadim Houry, terrorism/counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. “The lack of accountability, mirrored in the US with the approval of an official involved in the rendition program as the new CIA director, leaves the door open for a return to these illegal practices.”

The rulings came in the cases of Abu Zubaydah v. Lithuania and Al-Nashiri v. Romania. The European Court found that both countries had hosted secret CIA prisons and that they knew the CIA was using their territory for renditions and secret detention and that “the extremely harsh [CIA] detention regime” on their territory violated the prohibition of torture. Both men are in US custody at Guantanamo Bay. Abu Zubaydah has never been charged with a crime while al-Nashiri faces charges for his alleged role in bombing a US warship off the coast of Yemen in 2000.

Following the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the CIA operated a global, state-sanctioned program in which it abducted scores of people throughout the world, held them in secret detention – sometimes for years – or “rendered” them to various countries, and tortured or otherwise ill-treated them. While the program officially ended in 2009, the cover-up and impunity for these crimes is ongoing.

Neither the US or any of the numerous countries that assisted in this illegal program have adequately accounted for these abuses. Gina Haspel, the new CIA director, reportedly ran a secret CIA “black site” in Thailand – where both al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah were held prior to being transferred to other CIA detention centers – and facilitated the destruction of 92 videotapes of torture that occurred there.

Romania and Lithuania are not the only European countries implicated in the CIA renditions program. The European Court has already condemned Poland for its role in the rendition, detention, and torture of both of these men, Macedonia for its involvement in the CIA’s abduction and illegal transfer of Khaled Al-Masri, a German citizen, and Italy for its role in the abduction of Hassan Mustapha Osama Nasr, an Egyptian cleric better known as Abu Omar, to Egypt.

There is also credible evidence from the United Nations, the European Parliament, and Council of Europe that many other European countries – including Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK – were involved to various degrees. The UK recently made a formal apology to two Libyan nationals in whose rendition it was involved, and Sweden has apologized to and compensated two Egyptian nationals for its involvement in their rendition.

Of these, only Italy has prosecuted anyone in relation to the program – convicting two Italians and, in absentia, 23 US agents for abducting the Egyptian cleric.

The European Court gave short shrift to the investigations and related diplomatic efforts by Lithuania and Romania over its role in these cases. The Lithuanian prosecutor-general’s office opened a criminal investigation in January 2010 following a parliamentary inquiry that confirmed the existence of two black sites and that Lithuanian airports and airspace had been used for CIA-related flights. One year later, the case was abruptly closed for lack of evidence.

Following the release of the US Senate summary of the still classified 6,700-page report documenting the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, the prosecutor general’s office claims to have sent a formal request for legal assistance to US authorities. In April 2015, it announced it was reopening its investigation, which remains ongoing.

Romania opened a criminal investigation in 2012 following a complaint by al-Nashiri but it is still pending and no information has been made public. A parliamentary inquiry that began in December 2005 and concluded in March 2007, found no evidence of a secret CIA prison, illegal prisoner transfers, or Romanian involvement in the CIA’s program. The European Court raised concerns in paragraph 651 of its judgment that the delay in the investigation meant that crucial flight data had been erased.

The European Court found that the Lithuanian and Romanian investigations had been ineffective and urged both countries to conclude their investigations without delay and to hold to account any officials identified as responsible.

It also ordered Romania to seek assurances from the US government in al-Nashiri’s case that his trial in the US would not result in the death penalty. Each man was awarded 100,000 Euros in damages.

“With accountability efforts stalled in the US, it is more important than ever to have a renewed push for accountability on this side of the Atlantic,” Houry said. “Ignoring the abuses of the past or procrastinating their prosecution risks making them a reality of the present.”</s>STRASBOURG, France: The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that Lithuania and Romania were complicit in a controversial CIA programme to hold terror suspects in secret detention sites on their territories.

Two suspects now being held at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay lodged the case with the court in 2011 and 2012, saying they were illegally held and tortured at CIA "black sites" in Romania and Lithuania from 2004 to 2006.

The court said Romanian authorities knew that Saudi national Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri would risk torture and the death penalty when it allowed the CIA to hold him at a secret facility in their country from April 2004 to November 2005.

Nashiri is accused of orchestrating maritime terror attacks including the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen that left 17 dead. The former Soviet republic of Lithuania was found complicit in hosting a secret CIA prison from February 2005 to March 2006, when it illegally held a top Palestinian operative for Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah.

A 2014 US Senate report found that both Zubaydah and Nashiri -- considered "high-level detainees" -- were subject to "enhanced interrogation techniques" in CIA detention. These included waterboarding, or simulated drowning.

The ECHR found that in both cases the suspects were effectively within the national jurisdictions of Lithuania and Romania. Both countries were therefore "responsible for the violation" of their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The convention explicitly forbids torture and the death penalty. The court ordered Lithuania and Romania to pay 100,000 euros ($117,000) to each complainant. In the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks the CIA took suspected Al Qaeda detainees to several "black sites" around the world to escape US rules on interrogations -- a programme that has since been judged illegal.

Other punishments inflicted at the CIA sites included intense sleep deprivation, being crammed into coffin-size boxes and "rectal rehydration" to get suspects to talk. The US Senate report did not publicly identify the location of the CIA sites, but the European court had already condemned Poland in 2014 for allowing both Nashiri and Zubaydah to be held at a site there in 2002 and 2003. The ECHR said they based their findings in large part on the US report since they were unable to have access to Nashiri and Zubaydah at Guantanamo.</s>The European Court of Human Rights concluded that Lithuania and Romania were responsible for violations of rights of terrorism suspects due to their complicity in US Central Intelligence Agency "secret rendition," the Council of Europe said Thursday.

The decision was made after two suspects who a currently being held at the US prison in Guantanamo lodged the case in 2011 and 2012, claiming that they were illegally held at the so called "black sites" controlled by the CIA from 2004 to 2006.

The court decreed that Romanian authorities were aware of the fact that Saudi national Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri would risk torture and the death penalty when they allowed the CIA to detain him on their territory April 2004 to November 2005.

Lithuania was also found complicit in hosting a secret CIA prison from February 2005 to March 2006 when it illegally held the second plaintiff, Abu Zubaydah.

The court found that Lithuania and Romania were "responsible for the violation" of the suspects’ rights under the European Convention on Human Rights which explicitly forbids torture and the death penalty.

In 2014 a US Senate report also determined that both suspects were subjected to the so called ‘enhanced interrogations techniques’ while in the CIA custody, including waterboarding.</s>The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that Romania and Lithuania allowed the detention and abuse of a Saudi and a Palestinian at secret U.S. prisons.

The Strasbourg, France-based court said Thursday that Abd al-Rahim Al Nashiri, a Saudi national later sent to Guantanamo Bay, was detained and abused in Romania between Sept. 2003 and Oct. 2005, and urged Romania to investigate and punish perpetrators.

The court concluded that Al-Nashiri was blindfolded, hooded, shackled, kept in solitary confinement, and subjected to loud noise and bright light during his detention at the CIA prison in Romania.

Romania denies hosting such CIA facilities. There was no immediate reaction from the government.

The court said Al Nashiri and Zubaydah were both considered "high-value detainees" taken by the CIA at the start of the U.S.-led "war on terror."

Al Nashiri's lawyer, Amrit Singh, called the ruling "a sharp rebuke to Romania's shameful attempts" to conceal its hosting of a secret CIA prison.She was the lead lawyer on the case with the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative.

Singh also noted the court's decision in light of the appointment of new CIA Director Gina Haspel, who supervised a covert detention site in Thailand where terror suspects, including al-Nashiri, were waterboarded, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning.

"The European court's ruling is critical for upholding standards of international law — that torture is absolutely prohibited and those involved in torture must be held to account," said Singh. "It stands in stark contrast to the United States' decision to promote Gina Haspel to CIA Director despite her role in my client's torture."

 

 The court also said that Lithuania hosted a secret CIA detention facility from February 2005 to March 2006 where Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian suspected of being a planner for the Sept. 11 attacks, was detained.

It ruled that Lithuania allowed him to be moved to another CIA detention site in Afghanistan, "exposing him to further ill-treatment." He is currently detained at Guantanamo Bay and has not been charged.

Lithuanian authorities said they would consider appealing the court's decision and may also investigate the claims again.

Justice Minister Elvinas Jankevicius told reporters that "we will take a decision after carefully examining," the ruling. Vytautas Bakas, the chairman of the parliamentary committee for national security and defense, said he would propose opening a new probe.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, however, contradicted the justice minister and said in a statement that the small Baltic country's "reputation damage is done," adding that Lithuania "thus will have to execute a court judgment" and pay Zubaydah 130,000 euros ($152,000). She has regularly clashed with the Lithuanian government and forced a minister to resign after expressing her distrust.

Amnesty International called the rulings "a key milestone in holding European governments accountable for their involvement in illegal CIA activities in the aftermath" of the 9/11 attacks.

Roisin Pillay, director of the International Council of Jurists' Europe and Central Asia Program claimed that "many other European governments colluded with the U.S. to illegally transfer, `disappear' and torture people during rendition operations and must also be held accountable."

A 2009 investigation in Lithuania concluded that the country's intelligence agency helped the CIA set up two small detention centers there, but did not determine whether the facilities were actually used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects.</s>The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Romania and Lithuania allowed the detention and abuse of a Saudi and a Palestinian at secret US prisons.

The Strasbourg-based court said Abd al-Rahim Al Nashiri, a Saudi national later sent to Guantanamo Bay, was detained and abused in Romania between September 2003 and October 2005, and urged Romania to investigate and punish perpetrators.

The court said Lithuania hosted a secret CIA detention facility from February 2005 to March 2006 where Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian suspected of being a planner for the September 11 attacks, was detained.

Al Nashiri’s lawyer Amrit Singh called the ruling “a sharp rebuke to Romania’s shameful attempts” to conceal its hosting of a secret CIA prison.
The European Court of Human Rights rules that the Romanian and Lithuanian governments each knowingly hosted CIA secret prisons around 2005. Both countries also participated in the US extraordinary rendition program: one case by each country is acknowledged. Four years ago, Poland was also condemned for running a CIA secret jail.