Activists: CIA flew suspected rendition flights into Poland

Feb 22, 2010, 17:48 GMT

Warsaw - Flight logs obtained from Polish officials confirm that CIA planes landed in Poland during 2003, in what human rights groups suspect were rendition-linked flights, activists said Monday.

The flight logs from the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency show CIA-chartered planes landed in Szymany, northern Poland, at least six times in 2003, said officials from the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, who requested the logs under the Polish freedom of information act.

Five of the planes flew in from Kabul, Afghanistan, while one was from Morocco.

'This is a breakthrough,' said Dorota Pudzianowska of the Helsinki Foundation, adding that the information came from a state agency and not anonymous sources.

New York-based Human Rights Watch claimed in a 2005 report that secret CIA prisons were located in Poland, used to house suspected terrorists from Afghanistan.

A confirmation that planes linked to the CIA landed in Poland does not prove that CIA prisons were located on Polish soil, said Adam Bodnar of the Helskinki Foundation. 'I cannot say that 100 per cent, but I can say it for 98 per cent,' he said.

Polish authorities have denied allegations that CIA prisons were located in Polish. Prosecutors are currently investigating the allegations but have not released their findings.

'It is time for the authorities to provide a full account of Poland's role in rendition,' Bodnar said in a statement. 'These flight records reinforce the troubling findings of official European enquiries and global human rights groups, showing complicity with CIA abuse across Europe.'