Media leaks complicating Lithuanian CIA prison probe, says official

Nov 20, 2009, 18:00 GMT

Vilnius - Admitting media leaks were complicating its efforts, a Lithuanian official heading a parliamentary probe into claims of secret prisons operated by the US intelligence agency CIA in Lithuania said Friday the report would still be released on time.

Speaking to journalists in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, Arvydas Anusauskas of the National Security and Defense Committee said the probe would be released on December 22, despite a growing body of evidence complicating the case.

'The investigation is constantly creating new questions, and new names of people who might be able to tell us the necessary information,' Anusauskas said.

Witnesses cross-examined Friday included former border guard chief Algimantas Songaila. If terrorism suspects had been brought into the country covertly, he should have known about it, he said.

'I had no such information,' Songaila stated.

American broadcaster ABC and the Washington Post newspaper claimed Thursday a secret facility operated at the Antaviliai equestrian complex located less than 20 kilometres outside the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.

The ABC News website quoted unidentified sources in both the US and Lithuania saying the prison operated from September 2004 until November 2005, and held up to eight terrorism suspects who may have been subjected to various forms of torture.

According to ABC News, a concrete wall was built inside the stable block by English-speaking contractors to create a 'building within a building' and on-site generators supplied electricity at 110 volts - used in the US - rather than Lithuania's 230-volt supply.

A new parliamentary probe was instigated at the demand of President Dalia Grybauskaite who said Lithuania should 'apologize and promise that it will never happen again' if the allegations prove to be correct.

An earlier investigation found no conclusive evidence supporting the existence of a secret CIA prison. Grybauskaite's predecessor, President Valdas Adamkus, a former American citizen, denied any such facility had been established in Lithuania.