Council of Europe inquiry incriminates European governments heavily

The interim report of special rapporteur Dick Marty on the secret detention, abduction and extraordinary rendition within the CoE territory was published on 1/23/06.

Marty concludes from the evidence known that the US and its European allies do systematically use "outsourced" torture for intelligence purposes.

"Drawing on all this concordant information and evidence we can say that there is a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of "relocation" or "outsourcing" of torture. Acts of torture, or severe violations of detainees' dignity through the administration of inhuman or degrading treatment, are carried out outside national territory and beyond the authority of the national intelligence services. Does this mean that torture is so easy to use in this day and age? Is it enough for one's own secret services not to be physically present at the place of interrogation and to pretend to have no official knowledge of this practice to state that the law is not being broken? In this context, the statements made by Mr Schäuble, Germany's new Minister for the Interior, appear at the very least highly debatable, if not alarming. He seems to consider that the use of information obtained by dubious means is acceptable, provided that the German services were not perpetrating acts of torture themselves."

"Did such pointers to the existence of "networked" torture really escape the notice of Council of Europe member states? What is, therefore, the share of responsibility of member states when their airport facilities are used to transport detainees to places where they will be subjected to torture, ie places – dare I say – of public notoriety ? Is there true co-operation between European states and the United States, or do the former display a respectable kind of duplicity?"

Please note that not all CoE member countries have so far cooperated sufficiently with the CoE inquiry. One of them, Romania - alleged location of the CIA secret detention centers - should be strongly held accountable as an EU accession country.

See also the reaction of Amnesty. It emphazises the need of various European countries to comply with the inquiry. The existence of secret detention and abduction has already been proven by various sources (including a November 2005 HRW report) - European countries like Romania, Britain or Italy now have to argue how their involvement in those unlawful actions would not be a breach of various human rights and anti-torture acts.