Rice to address issue of reported US secret prisons

WASHINGTON: During her trip to Europe this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will tell allies the US does not transport suspected terrorists around the globe to be tortured, the president’s national security adviser said yesterday. European governments have expressed outrage over reports of secret CIA prisons where terrorism detainees may have been mistreated. The Bush administration has refused to address the question of whether it operated secret sites that may be illegal under European law. Stephen Hadley said that Rice, who has pledged a response to the European Union on the issue, will address the matter “in a comprehensive way” while in Europe.

“One of the things she will be saying is, ‘Look, we are all threatened by terror. We need to cooperate in its solution, Hadley said on Fox News Sunday.” “As part of that cooperation for our part, we comply with US law. We respect the sovereignty of the countries with which we deal. And we do not move people around the world so that they can be tortured,” the White House adviser said. Asked whether the US operates secret prisons in Europe, Hadley said on CNN’s Late Edition that “there is a lot of cooperation at a variety of levels on the war on terror.” He added, “There are things that are obviously going to be said and cannot be said publicly. There are things that are going to be said and can be said privately in communications with governments.” Hadley conceded that “mistakes get made and people go over the line. And when they do, the pattern is very clear. We investigate them aggressively where appropriate charges are brought and people are punished ... and procedures are changed to try and reduce likelihood of mistakes in the future.”

The Washington Post reported yesterday that the US acknowledged last year that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned a German man for five months. Khaled al-Masri, a Lebanese German national, said he was seized while on vacation in Europe last year and then brought to a US prison in Afghanistan where he was tortured and interrogated for suspected ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist group. A German prosecutor is looking into al-Masri’s claims. The Post’s sources, who would only speak anonymously, said the United States wanted German officials to keep silent because of fears of exposing a covert US programme to capture terror suspects abroad and transfer them to other countries. “The folks who are fighting the war on terror have a difficult job,” Hadley said. “They are charged to be both aggressive, to defend the country against attack, and at the same time to comply with US Constitution, law, and treaty obligations. That is a difficult line to walk.”

More than a half-dozen investigations are under way into whether European countries may have hosted secret US-run prisons, and whether European airports and airspace were used for CIA flights in which prisoners were tortured or transported to countries where torture is practised. Rice has pledged to discuss the issue publicly before her departure early today for a trip to European capitals. Her itinerary includes Romania, one country identified by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch as a likely prison site. Romania has denied it. The existence of prisons was first reported a month ago by the Post.