[a little late...]
Sunday Times (London) - November 15, 2004
Private jet takes men for 'torture' [snip] ~~~~~~~~~
A little late?
----- Original Message ----- From: Leigh Meyers To: Newsroom-L Sent: Monday, July 26, 2004 7:36 AM Subject: Can you imagine that? [...]
A Secret Deportation Of Terror Suspects 2 Men Reportedly Tortured in Egypt
By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, July 25, 2004; Page A01 Staff researcher Margot Williams in Washington contributed to this report.
STOCKHOLM -- The airport police officer was about to close his small precinct station for the night, when two men wearing suits walked in. The visitors said the special Swedish security police had just arrested two suspected terrorists -- very dangerous men -- and needed a place to hold them until a plane could take them away. [...]
"...hooded agents took the suspected terrorists into the precinct's dressing room. Inside, the agents cut off the prisoners' clothes with scissors, changed the men into red overalls and bound them with handcuffs and leg irons. Then they were hustled out the door and onto the tarmac, where a U.S.-registered Gulfstream V jet was waiting.
The men with covered faces "were very quiet," recalled Paul Forell, the police officer on duty at Stockholm's Bromma Airport that night. "When they gave orders to each other, they kept their voices down. It seemed like they had done this before. They were very professional." Forell said he could not hear them well enough to get a feel for their nationality. [...]
"The deportation was carried out swiftly and outside Sweden's normal legal channels"... "Their[the suspects] lawyers were not officially notified of the expulsion until after the plane had departed, to prevent them from filing appeals." [...]
Playing a central and secret role in the operation: the U.S. government, which provided the plane, some agents and other logistical support, according to classified documents recently released by the Swedish government, as well as interviews in Stockholm and Cairo. [...]
Critics have charged that the practice is vulnerable to abuse, noting that suspects are usually deported to countries that are friendly to U.S. intelligence agencies but also have records of permitting torture or other human rights violations. In organizing such transfers, the U.S. government is engaging in practices abroad that would be illegal and unconstitutional at home, those critics have said. [...]
The Swedish government, for instance, agreed to deport the suspects only after receiving assurances from Egypt that they would be given fair trials and "not be subjected to inhuman treatment or punishment of any kind," according to a confidential memo prepared by Swedish diplomats six days before the expulsion.
Records and interviews show, however, that the agreement was broken almost as soon as the two men arrived in Cairo. Their lawyers, relatives and human rights groups said there is credible evidence that they were regularly subjected to electric shocks and other forms of torture. One suspect was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a military tribunal after a trial that lasted less than six hours. The other spent almost two years behind bars without being charged.
Swedish government officials now say the deportation was an embarrassing mistake. The government has called for an international investigation, possibly under the authority of the United Nations, into how the two men were treated. Separately, the Swedish parliament has opened an internal probe to determine the exact role played by U.S. intelligence agents. [...]
The U.S. involvement remained a secret until two months ago, when a Swedish television program -- Kalla Fakta, or "Cold Facts" -- broadcast a documentary reporting that U.S. agents assisted in the apprehension of Agiza and Zery, and that the plane chartered to Cairo had been used in a previous rendition case in Pakistan.
A CIA spokesman declined to comment for this article, and State Department officials declined to comment on the record. But the Swedish government has released previously classified documents that confirm the American role. [...]
A flight plan filed with Swedish aviation authorities shows that the Gulfstream jet was registered to a Massachusetts company, Premier Executive Transport Services. U.S. aviation records show that the firm has only two registered aircraft and that they have permits to land at U.S. military bases around the world.
[In the Washpost archive$ by now] http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11976-2004Jul24?language=printer ==============================