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Poland was main CIA detention base in Europe: HRW
By Reuters
12/09/05 -- -- WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland was the heart of the CIA's
secret detention network in Europe, with bases there until recently
holding a quarter of the 100 detainees estimated held in such camps
worldwide, a human rights group said.
Reports of the CIA operating secret jails in Poland and Romania as
part of its war on terror have raised controversy on both sides of
the Atlantic and dogged U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's
European trip this week.
"Poland was the main base for CIA interrogations in Europe, while
Romania played more of a role in the transfer of detained
prisoners," Marc Garlasco, a leading analyst at Human Rights Watch,
was quoted by Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza on Friday as saying.
Garlasco said the CIA had set up two detention centers in Poland,
which were closed shortly after the Washington Post published an
article about secret prisons last month.
He said the allegations were based on information from CIA sources
and other documents obtained by Human Rights Watch. "We have leads,
circumstantial evidence to check but it's too early to reveal them,"
Garlasco said.
Polish authorities have repeatedly denied the existence of secret
jails of any form on Polish territory, with Prime Minister Kazimierz
Marcinkieicz saying this week he would fully cooperate in human
rights probes into the allegations.
Poland is one of Washington's leading allies in Europe, where it
irked EU heavyweights Germany and France by backing the U.S. war
with Iraq and sending troops there.
European countries responded to public pressure by seeking answers
from Washington before Rice's trip, but quickly retreated in the
face of her defense that the United States respected their
sovereignty and acted within the law in its war on terrorism.
© Reuters 2005.
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