It has been going on for years: Poland prosecutors have been looking into the issue of whether a secret CIA-run prison, in which ‘renditioned’ prisoners were subjected to ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ had the legal approval of Polish officials. According to this article from Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, details of the long-sought agreement that made the prison possible have come to light, and apparently, it contains the signatures of Polish officials – but none of any Americans!
The news item from Gazeta Wyborcza starts off this way:
“The Americans just laughed at the agreement put before them to sign, because they didn’t want to leave traces of violations of international law and their own constitution. They took us for amateurs and explained that such issues aren’t addressed in formal agreements,” our informant says. Then he adds: “This can now be used as a defense by Polish bureaucrats: ‘the agreement was not signed, so it did not apply.’”
We’re talking about a document created at the end of 2001-beginning of 2002. It was after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when the United States, with the support of its allies (Poland and Britain, among others), marched into Afghanistan to overturn the government of the Taliban, which had sheltered and supported the terrorists of al-Qaeda.
Poland, in addition to providing military support, worked with the U.S. on issues of intelligence. Within the framework of that cooperation, the Polish side agreed to allow CIA aircraft to land at the Szczytno-Szymany International Airport and to permit the detention of terror suspects on the grounds of the Agencja Wywiadu Intelligence Agency Training Center in Stare Kiejkuty [Polish Intelligence training center].
READ ON IN ENGLISH OR POLISH AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.
Founder and Managing Editor of Worldmeets.US