Allegations that the CIA abducted and illegally transported terror suspects across European borders are credible, an investigator for the Council of Europe has said. Swiss senator Dick Marty has submitted a report on the claims to a meeting of the human rights committee.

“From a general point of view, the rapporteur underlined that the information gathered to date reinforced the credibility of the allegations concerning the transfer and temporary detention of individuals, without any judicial involvement, in European countries.

Legal proceedings in progress in certain countries seemed to indicate that individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards. It had to be noted that the allegations had never been formally denied by the United States. The rapporteur takes note of the situation and deplores the fact that no information or explanations had been provided on this point by Ms Rice during her visit to Europe.

The rapporteur urges all member governments to commit themselves fully to establishing the truth about flights over their territories in recent years by aeroplanes carrying individuals arrested and detained without any judicial involvement. The Rapporteur intends to ask the leaders of the parlementary delegations to the Assembly to take initiatives within their parliaments in order to obtain more precise information on this matter, either by putting questions to their governments or by proposing the setting up of committees of enquiry. In fact, the delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly can make use of their unique position to lobby national parliaments to shed light on the matter. Mr Marty welcomes the fact that steps have already been taken here by certain national parliaments.”

Needless to add, with the current weak and desperate attempts to deflect questions on extraordinary rendition and torture this should remain a hot topic for the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC).

In this context, the response that the FAC gets to their request for documents on British complicity in torture in Uzbekistan will be extremely interesting!